BORNO VARSITY LECTURERS PROTEST WITHHELD SALARIES , POSTPONES GRADUATION 

The final year students of the University of Maiduguri, Borno State will not graduate this year following the disagreement between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities over the pro-rata payment of salaries.

This follows the failure of the government to pay the striking lecturers their withheld eight months salaries.

Though the university conducted examinations for students of the 2020/2021 session following the strike, the lecturers had decided not to mark the scripts.

“Members of ASUU will not mark the current examination scripts. They will also not submit the results of both the first and second semesters of the 2020/2021 academic session,” the UniMaid ASUU branch Chairman, Dr. Abubakar Mshelia Saidu, told newsmen on Tuesday.

“There will be no computation of academic status by coordinators of parts 1-4, 5 or 6, as applicable,” he stressed.

Saidu added, “Current final year students will not be graduated as departmental and faculty boards and the university Senate will never consider the results of the 2020/2021 session.

“Government said ‘no work no pay’, we say ‘no pay no work’.”

The UniMaid ASUU branch called on the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to issue a directive for the reversal of the ‘unacceptable’ pro-rata payment of the salaries of university lecturers and ensure the full payment of the eight months withheld salaries of the lecturers.

“Government’s decision on the payment of our salaries is not acceptable,” Prof. Martha Tarfa of the university’s Faculty of Biological Sciences complained to newsmen.

“We can’t be treated like daily paid workers or labourers; it is unacceptable,” she added.

“These decisions by the ASUU branch of our university is a bad omen to us students,” Francis Okoye, a Law undergraduate of the university, told The PUNCH, adding, “It will be injurious to us.”

He complained, “Withholding results will drag us back in our educational career. Most of us have already lost a complete session.”