Tunbosun Ogundare | Lagos
THE Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has called on various state governments that owe their lecturers several months salaries to pay up before the expiration of their administrations on May 29.
The president of the union, Anderson Ezeibe, made the call in an interview with the Nigerian Tribune.
He said it was disheartening that some state governors in the country no longer see payment of salaries of lecturers and other workers in their state-owned polytechnics as important, let alone a priority.
He disclosed that no fewer than five states engage in this kind of attitude nationwide, noting that one of them, Abia State, is owing more than 30 months while the rest are owing between two and five months.
He wondered how the states concerned would want the affected lecturers and their families to cope without salaries.
He said the most disturbing thing about the situation is that most of these states still go about misinforming the public through the media that they don’t owe their workers salaries.
Ezeibe charged the states to offset their bills and in full without further delay.
“There is no glory in employers of labour denying their workers their wages. Doing so is an act of wickedness,” he said.
The ASUP president said that apart from the irregular payment of salaries by these states, polytechnic lecturers’ salaries across board are not only meager but also losing value by the day because of the high inflation in the country.
He said that the best thing is for every state government to start the next administration on a clean slate rather than with inherited debts.
