ASUU to Adamu Adamu: You’re joking — no salary arrears, no resumption

Emmanuel Osodeke, president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), says lecturers will not give a backlog of lectures if the federal government fails to pay their salary in arrears.

ASUU has been on strike since February 14 to protest the non-implementation of its demands by the federal government.

In a chat with The Punch on Thursday, the president of the union reacted to a statement by Adamu Adamu, minister of education, that the federal government will not concede to ASUU’s demands for the payment of a backlog of salaries withheld within the period of the strike.

“He is joking. If they fail to pay, we will not teach those students; we won’t make up for that period. We will start a new session (2022/2023). We won’t conduct examinations; we will start a fresh session totally,” he said.

“Lecturers are not doctors that once life is gone, it can’t be brought back. For lecturers, we can still resume where we stopped and still teach them and make up for lost time. But for us, if they fail to pay we won’t make up for the lost time. We won’t go back to fill backlogs; the schools will start a new session, in 2022/2023. Examinations and the period lost won’t be taught.”

‘’If they want to do ‘no work no pay,’ we will also do ‘no pay no work.’ If they won’t pay the backlog, we won’t teach the backlog. We are not like other workers. He doesn’t know what he is saying.”