UNIPORT ASUU Strike: Students Demand Call Off

Students of University of
Port Harcourt, Choba have called on the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the university to immediately call off the industrial strike action embarked upon by the lecturers over unpaid February salary.
Vroimi Amos, a final year chemical Engineering student told The Tide that the lecturers strike was uncalled for now in view of the fact that students are trying to cover lost academic grounds due to the prolonged strike that was called off on December 5 last year.
Amos said “let the lecturers call off this unnecessary strike for our sake as we want to graduate and go out of this university.
He accused the ASUU members in the university of not following due process of commencing the strike action.
Also speaking, Miss Temitope Balogun a 300 level student of Geography Department said the lecturers are insensitive to the plight of the students.
She said the lecturers are selfish to have embarked on this strike action.
Balogun said that non-payment of February salary for 10 days should not have resulted to strike action if the lecturers are sincere and serious with their jobs.
Further speaking on the  strike, a Port-Harcourt based legal practitioner, Nelson Uwamie  Nelson, said the lecturers action was illegal and an abuse of the extant Labour Laws of the country.
He said the lecturers cannot embark on full-scale strike action without issuing notice of warning strike for three days to the university authorities over delay of salary for a period of 10 days.
The university’s deputy Registrar (Public Relations) Mr Williams Wodi delay in the lecturers February salary payment was as a result of the biometric data verification exercise ordered by the federal government.
He condemned the lecturers strike action without appreciating that their salaries were paid for six months even without them working but rather were on strike. When The Tide went round the three campuses of Abuja, Delta park and Choba most classrooms were locked.
At the Mile Three satellite campus, The Tide also noticed that classrooms were equally locked without any lecture going on.