Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
Governor Seriake Dickson
of Bayelsa State
The Academic Staff Union of Universities and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, Niger Delta University branch, have decried the inability of the Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, to pay their three-month salaries.
The unions and the National Association of Technologists of the state-owned university, lashed out at Governor Dickson’s administration for not paying them.
In a joint communique signed by Chairman, ASUU, Dr. Stanley Ogoun; Chairman, SSANU, Wilcox Fakidouma; Chairman, NAAT, Ekipre Dienagha; and Chairman, NASU, Kenneth Akpofagha, the unions said the non-payment of their salaries had made life unbearable for them.
They lamented that the consequence of the unpaid salaries had made it difficult for them to meet their obligations as parents to pay their children’s school fees.
The groups said, “It is inhuman to expect our members to exercise further patience when three months into the new year, salaries have not been paid.
“The development has resulted in families of our members going hungry, our children being driven out of school in the last term, the sick uncared for and eviction by landlords due to expiration of house rents.
“Also, there is increased rate of hypertension and related diseases arising from members’ inability to provide food on the table and worsened by no means of credit facilities.”
The groups, which said they supported the state government’s staff verification as a means of checking fraud in their payroll, argued that the timing of that nonpayment of salary was a premeditated attempt to worsen the economic state even when they have spent the last four years to do a verification that did not achieve any meaningful result.
The joint Unions called on the Dickson-led government to immediately pay their three months salaries-January to March, on the basis of the Bank Verification Number they had earlier submitted, while the current verification exercise continued.
The groups noted, “Our Visitor (His Excellency, Governor Seriake Dickson), should be bothered by the cries of children whose working parents are no longer able to provide food and medical care for them or by the fact that people can no longer transport themselves to their places of work arising from the scarcity of petrol.
“By extending the period of no salaries beyond the third month, our Visitor to the university is vicariously liable for systematically compelling genuine workers to indulge in criminality to keep their families alive.
“Where is the place of empathy in public policy formulation and implementation? We are calling on Governor Dickson to condescend to the state of the ordinary worker whose take home pay cannot even take him home.
“The misguided notion of university autonomy as held by only the Bayelsa State Government in the entire country should not be used as a guise for abdicating her responsibility to the university.”
They said as a mark of respect for and in honour of the founding father and first visitor to the NDU, the late Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, they would converge at the various levels of their unions for an appropriate response after his burial slated for April 8 and 9, 2016.
Academic unions slam Dickson over salary arrears
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