We ain’t gonna pay nobody for a job not done
The federal government has said professors who have just returned to university after an 8-month strike should not expect full salary payment because they cannot be paid for work not done.
Education Minister Mallam Adamu Adamu expressed the Federal Government’s position on the new confrontation with ASUU after the week-long meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari, at the Presidential Villa from Abuja.
When asked to comment on the speakers’ insistence on going on a no-work day to protest the federal government’s decision to pay its members on a pro-rata basis, Adamu said the federal government’s position was that speakers ” would not be paid”. for work not done.
He also said that ASUU’s claim that FG turns lecturers into casual workers is not true because no one can do that.
Adamu said;
“The strike was called off and the government paid them what they were owed. I think that’s the government’s position; that he’s not going to pay anyone for work not done and that they’ve only done, I think, the number of days they’ve been paid.
“How can someone make a college professor a casual… Do you know the meaning of casual worker?” If you know the meaning of casual worker, it is impossible to make a university professor a casual worker.
When asked if the federal government would be willing to take action to appease the ASUU and avoid further hostilities, the minister said;
“I don’t understand, is there a problem now?”.
On the scheduled non-work day, he said:
“Oh? Okay, I don’t know. I don’t know. That they’re going on strike? No, nobody told me.
“So let’s wait for the day off, then I’ll find the details and we’ll talk, you can ask me then, but for now, I’m telling you honestly, I don’t know that there’s a problem”
Also reacting to the President of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodoke’s claim that the union would only have an agreement with the Minister of Education and President Femi Gbajabiamiala, and not with the Minister of Labor and Jobs, Adamu said;
“I can’t shed any light on something I didn’t know.
“And since they said they had nothing to do with the Minister of…Did they show you the deal?” Well, I’m not aware that there is an agreement between us.
