ASUU’s Rival CONUA To Sue FG Over Unpaid Salaries

The Congress of University Academics (CONUA) has announced that it will sue the Federal Government for withholding the salaries of its members despite not participating in the strike action embarked on by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

CONUA expressed disappointment with the FG, saying it was wrong to punish its members for the eight-month strike that lasted from February to October 2022.

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The union registered its anger on Tuesday in a statement signed by its National President, Niyi Sunmonu, alongside other executives of the body.

It said it was unfair for their salaries to be withheld “even when the government knew that the union did not call for strike action and its members were not involved in the strike action that lasted for eight months and which shut down the university system nationwide.”

The statement read in part, “CONUA formally made its non-involvement in the strike known to the Federal Government in a letter addressed to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, in April 2022.

“In the letter, we made it clear that because CONUA constituted a separate and independent union in the university system, our members did not call for any strike. This was followed by a Press Conference in Abuja on August 19, 2022 at which it was categorically stated that CONUA was not part of any ongoing strike, and that the “No Work No Pay” principle ought not to apply to members of the union.

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“CONUA’s expectation is that, due to the express and categorical declaration, the government would seamlessly release our members’ outstanding salaries when it resumed the payment of salaries to all university staff in October 2022. But to our dismay, CONUA members were also paid pro-rata salaries in complete disregard to the fact that we were indeed shut out of duties by the strike.

“Subsequently, we wrote to the Accountant-General of the Federatıon and the Ministry of Labour and Employment reminding them that it was an error to lump our members with those that declared and embarked on strike action. It was yet another shock for the outstanding backlog of salaries not to have been paid to our members along with the November 2022 salary.”

The union declared that the non-payment of the withheld salaries contravenes Section 43 (1b) of the Trade Disputes Act CAP. T8 which stipulates that “where any employer locks out his workers, the workers shall be entitled to wages and any other applicable remunerations for the period of the lock-out and the period of the lock-out shall not prejudicially affect any rights of the workers being rights dependent on the continuity of period of employment.

“From the foregoing and as a law-abiding union that pledged to do things differently, we have resolved to seek legal redress of the illegal withholding of our legitimate salaries by taking the matter to court in consonance with the rights enshrined in our laws,” CONUA said.

CONUA is a breakaway faction of ASUU which was registered by the FG on October 4, 2020, in the midst of the strike by ASUU. It is led by Dr Niyi Sunmonu, a lecturer at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife, and it has a presence in a few Federal Universities.

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When the new union was first registered, ASUU’s lawyer, Femi Falana SAN, threatened to sue the FG over the registration as well as that of another factional union, the National Association of Medical and Dental Academics (NAMDA).

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