Sowore seeks no-work no-pay for Buhari

*Claims the president barely works

The African Action Congress (AAC) presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has advocated the commencement of no-work no-pay policy of the Federal government with President Muhammadu Buhari.

Sowore said this while speaking on the controversial policy which the government foisted on lecturers in the public universities amid the impasse with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

Sowore, who spoke at the presidential town hall organised by Daria Media and Cabal Entertainment on Friday evening, insisted that if the Federal government must enforce the ‘no work, no pay’ policy, the enforcement must start from Buhari, claiming that he barely works.

Sowore argued that Nigerian workers must be paid when their industrial action was based on a just cause.

He said “When the strike is just, you will have to pay the strikers. They didn’t want to do this; it was the government that forced them into it. If you want to start the enforcement of not paying the people who are not working, I think the President should be number one because he barely works. And the truth is that these are the things that escalate the problems. You can’t keep escalating the problems by engaging in the things that made them.

“Our higher institutions are too important to be played with the technical part of laws. Let’s put the money they asked for. They are specific about how much they want. Let’s find the money and give it to them. Their demands have been the same since the 1990s,” he added.

The AAC standard bearer maintained that education is too important and even though it could be said that education is expensive, it is not as expensive as it is seen, compared to its importance in the society.

ASUU started its strike on February 14, 2022, over the government’s alleged failure to meet its demands, including improved funding for government-owned tertiary institutions in the country.

The strike, which lasted for eight months ended on October 14, but while the lecturers expected the government to pay them for the period they were on strike, the government insisted on enforcing the ‘No work, no pay’ policy, hence, the lecturers were paid half salary for October.

Following this, ASUU branches had been protesting the half-pay.