ASUU Rejects N35,000 Wage Offer, Insists on Negotiated Salaries for Members

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has insisted on negotiating the salary of its members with the Tinubu-led administration, thereby, rejecting the N35,000 wage award.

ASUU National President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, stated this in Ibadan on Thursday at the inauguration of the secretariat of the University of Ibadan (UI) branch of ASUU.

Osodeke stated that the union agreed that whatever was legally sent to members’ accounts should be spent but not taken as the negotiated salary.

“We told them we should negotiate our wage, but they said we are giving you an award of N35,000; we have told them that it is not our own.

“We are still insisting that there has to be negotiated salary,” he said.

He identified the renegotiation of the existing agreement, payment of withheld salaries, earned academic allowance, and release of the Needs Assessment Funds as some of the pending issues with the Federal Government.

While commending the UI ASUU branch for the tower it built using the expertise of its members, Osodeke decried the use of external or foreign consultants to handle projects in the country.

He said the government should rather hire experts within the country, especially from within Nigerian universities as consultants.

Earlier, the Vice-Chancellor, of UI, Prof. Kayode Adebowale, represented by Deputy Vice-Chancellor, of Research, Innovation and Strategic Partnership, Prof. Yemisi Bamgbose, had commended the union.