‘Don’t Turn Us To Casual Workers’- OAU Lecturers Stage Protest On Campus
Lecturers in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State on Wednesday protested within the premises of the campus over ‘no work, no pay’ policy of the Federal Government.
The lecturers who are members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU) thronged to the premises of the school around 12:30 after the monthly congress held at Faculty of Social Sciences lecture theater.
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The protesters were seen carrying placards with several inscriptions which read: “Lecturers are not slaves”, “Invest in Education”, “A nation that values education is a nation that develops” among others.
Addressing the protesters, the Chairman of ASUU, Professor Tony Odiwe, kicked against the payment of half salary to lecturers describing it as distraction after 8-month-old strike.
Odiwe vowed that the union will continue to push their demands until the government yield to demands of ASUU.
His words: “We are not troublemakers, we are union of intellectuals. The latest insult on our union is payment of prorated salaries to our members, for us, it is a distraction for us, our issues has nothing to do with half salary payment or no work, no pay, we have pre-issues why we went on strike.
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“We are on strike for eight months and those issues are still there. The government has not addressed them, even those that were addressed, were not attended to absolutely.
“The government must do the needful, we are not casual workers, they should not turn us into one, we must be paid fully. What we expected from government after we called off the strike is that government should show that good face to us by starting with full one-month salary to show that they are sincere and ready for us to dialogue.”
He stressed that, “When we are employed our condition of service is not solely on teaching, we have three components including research and community service. We only withdrew only one of the services which is teaching.
“We are not interested in who the minister is, we are interested in doing what is right. If Chris Ngige is not doing what is right or turn it to personal issue then the government should remove him.”
