FG should pay ASUU salary arrears –NLC, TUC

The President of the Trade Union Congress, Mr. Boboi Kaigama and the Acting General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Mr. Chris Uyot,  on Monday,  called on the Federal Government to accede to the demand of striking university lecturers by paying their salary arrears from July to October, 2013.

Both Kaigama and Uyot, who spoke in different telephone interviews with our correspondent, said that the issue at stake was too serious for the government to endanger with a minor issue as  the withholding of the salaries of the striking lecturers.

Kaigama  said that the lecturers should have been paid their salaries as going on strike did not mean that they were no longer entitled to their salaries.

He explained that the union went on strike because the Federal Government failed to implement the 2009 agreement reached with the university lecturers.

He added that it was not the lecturers’ fault for embarking on the strike, saying the story would have been different if it was ASUU that violated the terms of the agreement.

He said, “It is okay, they are supposed to be paid their salaries;  when one is on strike, it does not mean that he cannot be paid his or her salary.

“They went on strike because of an agreement that was negotiated which the government has not been able to fulfill. The government should, pay them their salaries.  The situation would have been different if they were the ones that reneged on the agreement.”

On the issue of the insistence of the leadership of ASUU that the Federal Government must commence implementation of the fresh agreement with the union through the release of N100bn this year, he said that he did not see the government going back on the agreement.

He said that the TUC and the NLC would support ASUU to ensure the implementation of the last agreement as it was witnessed by him and the NLC President, Mr. Abdulwahed Omar.

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