UNICAL lecturers protest unpaid allowances

Hundreds of placard-carrying members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, University of Calabar branch, on Wednesday, protested their unpaid local entitlements spanning over six years.

The Chairman, ASUU UNICAL, Dr John Edor, led the protest from the main campus in Calabar to the main gate of the university, where he addressed the lecturers before they moved to the administrative block, but there was no management official to receive the lecturers.

The lecturers carried placards with inscriptions such as ‘Our members dying, save our lives’, ‘Pay our promotion arrears’, ‘Pay our entitlements’, and ‘Stop selective implementation of promotion’, among others.

Speaking with journalists after addressing the lecturers, Edor said, “Our grievances are that for a number of years now, members of ASUU, University of Calabar chapter, have been working and our entitlements have not been paid.

“Such entitlements include teaching of the GSS courses, Graduate Thesis Supervision Allowance, CES courses, sandwich programmes, pre-degree and promotion arrears. Some of our members have been working and the backlog of their salaries is left unpaid and that is what we call salary arrears.

“Even if the Federal Government has refused to pay our salaries now, what we earned before, which is not one, two, or three but some are running into five and six years should be immediately paid to us.

“We have been asking for our entitlements for long, but the COVID-19 pandemic has compounded our vagaries and vicissitudes.

“The lockdown made it impossible for us to go and source for other legitimate means of livelihood to feed our families.”

According to him, the protest is only the beginning and if the entitlements are not paid, the lecturers will commence the Operation Occupy UNICAL.

Edor said it did not matter how long they were owed, adding, “No kobo will be lost. The peaceful protest will end only when all the arrears are paid. They should not wait for us to cry again before our entitlements are paid.”

The university will select a new vice-chancellor today (Thursday), as the five-year tenure of Prof. Zana Akpagu, ends.