The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has issued a seven day ultimatum to President Muhammadu Buhari to stop deducting illegally from lecturers’ salaries at public universities.
The Federal Government withheld the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) members’ salaries after they went on strike for more than eight months.
The Federal Government only paid lecturers for 18 working days in October, days after the strike.
In a statement released on Saturday by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, the federal government explained why it had only paid the lecturers half of their salaries, pointing out that ASUU members had received their October salaries pro rata.
The ministry claimed that pro-rata was used because employees cannot be paid for work that has not been completed and that Chris Ngige, the minister of labor and employment, never instructed the Accountant General of the Federation to give university lecturers half pay.
However, in response to the government’s stance, SERAP said in a succinct statement on its social media on Sunday that it has ordered the president to undo the lecturer’s salary deduction that was made illegally within the next seven days.
The statement read:
We’ve asked President Buhari to reverse within 7 days the apparently illegal deductions from the salaries of ASUU members or face legal action. Paying lecturers half salaries for going on strike is unlawful, and a deliberate attempt to make ASUU a lame duck.
