The national body representing lecturers in colleges of education, the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU), has ordered its members to report to work two days a week until the federal government accedes to its demand for a 200 percent pay raise.
The declaration was made in a statement published on Wednesday in Abuja and signed by Dr. Smart Olugbeko, national president of the union.
Olugbeko claimed that the decision was made at the COEASU’s emergency meeting on Tuesday in response to the difficulty its members were having getting to work due to the increase in the price of gasoline.
He emphasized that a litre of gasoline had increased by 250 percent since the federal government implemented the elimination of fuel subsidies two months prior.
”This worsened the inflationary rate on the cost of transportation, food and other essential commodities and impoverished the Nigerian people.
”Workers, including staff of colleges of education, kept faith with the government and chose to endure the untold hardship thinking it would be only for a while as the government promised to roll out palliative measures.
”Alas! While our capabilities to sustain hope were already exhausted, the price of petrol rose further to N650 per litre.
”Now, the leadership of the union has been inundated by members’ complaints that they could no longer go to work as a result of hike in the price of petrol and resultant high cost of transportation,” he said.
Olugbeko explained that it became inevitable for the union to direct members to go to work only two days weekly.
He added that an emergency NEC meeting would be convened to ratify the decision to decide the specific days of the week members were to go to work, while calling on the federal government to urgently do the needful as the action of the union against the hardship would have devastating effects on the students.