We’ll Take FG To Court If Our Target Is Exceeded- CONUA On Members’ Withheld Salaries

The Congress of Nigerian Universities Academics (CONUA) has declared that it still plans to take the Federal Government to court over the withheld salaries for members of the union.

The body stated that going to court would be a last resort if its members’ salaries are withheld beyond a target date that it has set.

CONUA President, Dr. Niyi Sunmonu, revealed this on Monday in a phone interview with THE WHISTLER.

“As we speak the answer is no”, Sunmonu said, when asked if members of CONUA have been paid.

“If going to court to seek the payment will be our final option, that depends on what we get from them going forward. We’ve set a target date among us, and if our requests are not met with respect to that target then we might have no choice but to invoke the legal options in Abuja, where the seat of the government is,” he said.

THE WHISTLER reported in December last year when CONUA first announced plans to sue the Federal Government for withholding the salaries of its members despite not participating in the 8- month strike action embarked on by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

Sunmonu said those plans were stalled however when the Federal Government through the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) office reached out to them asking for account details of members, which gave them the impression that they were willing to settle the outstanding payments.

“In December, we did threaten to take legal action, you are right. But on January, 13th of January to be precise, we received a letter from the Federal Government through the IPPIS office, requesting us to send some details, including full name, signatures, account numbers, etc. which we have done.

“That actually slowed us down, it gave us an impression that the government is doing something. As at last week, I was still in Abuja, and on Friday we were at the IPPIS office and we saw that they are doing some things, it’s just that the process is slow. We are still following up on them and assessing our findings,” he explained.

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

The union has earlier condemned the FG for holding back the salaries, saying that it was unfair to them as their 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.”