The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Wednesday gave federal and state governments a 14-day ultimatum within which to pay the shortfall in their salaries running into millions of naira or face unrest in the nation’s universities.
The body also gave some state governments owing lecturers their salaries and allowances the same period within which they should commence the payment of the outstanding salaries.
The affected state universities according to ASUU included Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LUATECH), Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado-Ekiti, Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba-Akoko (AAUA) and NDU.
Addressing a press conference at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), the Ondo State capital, the university lecturers under the Akure Zone of ASUU said the government should not do anything that would plunge the university system into unnecessary chaos over the shortfall in salary payment and the non-payment of salaries.
In a statement jointly signed by Dr Alex Odiyi, Dr Bola Oniya, Dr Caleb Aboriade and Prof Olu Olufayo said virtually all the universities in the country are experiencing different percentages of shortfall in the payment of their salaries.
Odiyi, who read the statement on behalf of other Chairmen of ASUU of other universities, said public universities in Nigeria have begun to experience worse reductions in salaries components of their allocation with the consequence of receiving fractions or percentage reduction in their salaries.
According to him, most federal universities did not have the capacity to make up for the shortfall in the salary component. This, he said, affected Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife (OAU), FUTA, Ekiti State University (EKSU) University of Jos, University of Ibadan (UI), University of Calabar and ATBU, Bauchi.