Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State says he will not hesitate to sack all the Kaduna State University (KASU) lecturers if they continue to observe the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike.
Recall that ASUU has been on strike since February over the failure of the federal government to meet its demands.
Many efforts by the government to address the issue and get lecturers and students return to classrooms have proved abortive.
Just on Monday, labour unions commenced solidarity protests in some parts of the country with ASUU to press home the Universities lecturers’ demand.
However, speaking on a radio programme in Kaduna on Wednesday, El-Rufai told the lecturers to return to classrooms in order to avoid having their positions declared vacant, adding that KASU lecturers had no reason to join any strike.
According to him, ASUU had a problem with the federal government, not the state government.
He said, “The Acting Vice Chancellor has assured me that they will resume, but I have asked them to find out if they actually resumed work, because I initially instructed that their salary be stopped. But I was later told they didn’t join the strike, so I asked that it should be investigated and those that collected salary and joined the strike will be asked to refund the salary.
“This is because Nigeria’s law says ‘no work, no pay’. This is the law. So whoever joined the strike will not be paid a salary. We have been telling the KASU lecturers that they have no problem with the State government. ASUU’s problem is with the Federal government. Therefore, why will our staff who have no problems with us join the strike?
“If this continues, I will wake up one day to sack them all, I swear to God. We will sack them all and declare their positions vacant on the pages of newspapers. They once did the same thing and we gave them warning, now they repeated it. I’m only waiting to receive the report from the commissioner for education. I swear to God, we will sack all those that joined the strike if they refuse to resume work.”
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