ASUU: DRAMA AS FG CLEARS MEDICAL LECTURERS’ SALARY BACKLOG 

The Federal Government has cleared the backlog of salaries of medical lecturers at the Usmanu Dan Fodiyo University, Sokoto, The PUNCH reports.

In a statement made available to our correspondent on Thursday, the branch chairman of ASUU, UDUS, Dr M.N Al-Mustapha noted the order was given by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige.

The statement partly read, “Recall also that, on July 14, 2022, the Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment granted an interview with Arise TV, where he stated, ‘Medical lecturers are at work, they are teaching. Sokoto has graduated their medical students, they are reasonable people, they have tested the strike and saw that it produces no result, yes they did it the last time. So, today, they have written, their Vice Chancellor has approved that they are at work.’

“This claim by the Honourable Minister, after careful investigation and consultation with the Vice Chancellor, the Provost of the Collage of Health Sciences and the Chairman, Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria, UDUTH Branch, was found to be false.

“On Monday, October 31, 2022, the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto Branch, received information that a segment of academic staff in the Collage of Health Sciences had been paid a backlog of seven months of their withheld salary (March to September). Our preliminary investigations, as to why only a section of academic staff in the university were paid, revealed that, the payment was made due to a letter written to the Hon. Minister of Finance instructing the exemption of some listed staff from the application of “No work No Pay” rule.