The Federal Government has commenced the payment of the withheld salaries of academics under the aegis of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

Multiple sources in the academic sector confirmed the development to our correspondent in Abuja on Monday.

The chairperson of ASUU at the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Prof. Gbolahan Bolarin, who confirmed the development on the record, said, “Yes, it is true. Payment has started rolling in.”

President Bola Tinubu Tinubu had in October 2023 approved the release of four of the eight months’ ASUU withheld workers’ salaries.

The salaries were withheld when the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari invoked a ‘No Work, No Pay policy’ against some university-based unions that embarked on a strike that lasted eight months in 2022.

The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, recently said the government has increased the university workers’ salaries by 35 per cent.

The minister also said the government has granted autonomy to the universities by removing them from the Integrated Payment and Payroll Information System.

He added that the universities no longer need a waiver to recruit and fill vacancies.

These resolutions were reached through informal consultations with the unions based in the tertiary institutions, Mamman said.

Even as they confirmed the release of additional two months withheld salaries, the university lecturers have told the federal government to pay their remaining salaries, insisting that they are expecting nothing less.

Their demand came following the payment of additional two months withheld salaries by the federal government over the strike they embarked upon in 2023.

A lecturer from the Federal University of Lafia, said that they woke up Monday morning to see that they have been paid an additional two months salaries. He, however, appealed to government to consider full payment, especially in the face of the rising cost of things.

“In as much as we appreciate the president for his intervention in paying us,we also expect him to release the payment covering all the months withheld,”he said, asking not to be named because he wasn’t a union official permitted to speak to the media.

Government’s payment of lecturers came days after the union accused the former of failing to fulfill any of its premises, vowing to press home on its demands with another wave of strike if

National President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, had claimed that the last month salaries were paid to them via the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System, IPPIS, even as government had pulled the union out of the payment platform.

Recall that the IPPIS released in 2006, is a government initiative aimed at streamlining payroll for government ministries, departments, and agencies.

It was later extended to universities and colleges but was stiffly denounced by university workers.

Both the academic and non-academic staff of universities who opposed the payment option, embarked on strike even as they unveiled their different payment platforms for government to adopt.

Meanwhile, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said only a few of its members received an amputated two-month salary from the Federal Government out of seven and the half-month withheld salaries.

Osodeke who confirmed the development to Channels Television on Monday said they are still collecting data on the payment.

“Even though they claimed that Payment has started rolling in only a few have gotten just 2 months,” he said on the phone.