Just two days after nationwide protests by university lecturers, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Owerri Zone, has demanded the immediate payment of three and a half months’ withheld salaries, stressing that “the labourer deserves his wage.”
The zone covers five institutions: Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU), Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO), Imo State University (IMSU), Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike (MOUAU), and Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), Awka.
Speaking in Awka, the Zone’s Coordinator, Professor Dennis Ariwodo, argued that the 2022 strike was caused by government’s failure to honour agreements, not by lecturers’ negligence.
“You cannot beat a child and ask him not to cry,” he said. “Government withheld our salaries as punishment for the 2022 strike. But the strike itself was a response to government’s breach of several Memoranda of Understanding with ASUU. Had those agreements been kept, there would have been no strike.”
Ariwodo maintained that withholding the salaries was unjust, especially as the money’s value has already depreciated. He also described the government’s failure to remit third-party deductions as a “criminal offence” and demanded immediate release of revitalization funds recommended by the 2012 Needs Assessment Committee, which put the sector’s requirement at N1.3 trillion over six years.
He lamented that only N200 billion had been released since 2014, leaving Nigerian universities to deteriorate. “No Nigerian public university ranks among the top 1,000 globally, while peers from other African countries do. Is that not a shame for the so-called giant of Africa?” he asked.
On funding, Ariwodo criticized Nigeria’s education budget, which hovers around 8%, far below the APC government’s promised 15% and UNESCO’s 26% benchmark.
The Owerri Zone, therefore, called on the federal government to:
Sign the renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU agreement
Pay the withheld salaries
Clear promotion arrears
Remit outstanding deductions
Release revitalization funds
Substantially increase funding for education
He expressed disappointment that despite ASUU’s patience and multiple efforts at dialogue, the government had failed to act.
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