The Federal Government has insisted on implementing its ‘no work no pay rule’ to serve as deterrence to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and other unions which might embark on strike action in future.
Adamu stated that all striking tertiary institutions’ based unions except ASUU have accepted its offers to call off their strikes by next week, noting that ASUU insisted that its members must be paid for the period of the strike.
The Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, made this known at the weekly briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team in Abuja on Thursday.
According to Adamu, the insistence by ASUU on being paid six months’ salaries during the strike period is what is stalling the negotiations between the Federal Government and the union.
The minister said: “If you think it is for the government other than what the government is doing in the university to stop strike, the standard government has taken now is not to pay the months in which no work was done.
”I think this is the only thing that is in the hands of government to ensure that there is penalty for some behaviour like this.
”So, I believe teachers will think twice before they join strike if they know that in the end they are not going to be paid and the federal government is not acting arbitrarily.
”Before it was some magnanimity on its part, there is a law which says if there is no work, there will be no pay.
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”I believe this will be a very strong element that will be determined from going on strike.”
Adamu further expressed the hope that all other unions like the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, (SANNU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Education and Associated Institutions, (NASU), and the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) will resume work in the next one week.
The minister also dismissed the media report that President Muhammadu Buhari gave him a two-week ultimatum to resolve the misunderstanding between ASUU and the Federal Government.
Adamu further disclosed that the Federal Government has spent over N6 trillion on revamping the country’s education sector in the last seven years.
He said the money was spent on the provision of infrastructure and Information Communication Technology equipment to public institutions of learning across the country.
On whether the Nigerian students deserve compensation from the Federal Government for the time wasted during the six-month ASUU strike, Adamu said it was duty bound on ASUU to compensate the affected students.
According to him, the Federal Government bears no liability to compensate the students grounded for six months over lost time, saying that if the students are determined to get compensated, they should take ASUU to court.
Adamu, therefore, advised the affected students to “take ASUU to court” for damages incurred over the strike period.
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