#BBB NEWS| NON-PAYMENT OF 22 MONTHS' SALARY ARREARS TO ACADEMIC AND NON-ACADEMIC STAFF OF AKWA IBOM STATE UNIVERSITY

For over 16 months, more than 200 academic and non-academic staff of Akwa Ibom State University (AKSU) have had to function without salaries, simply because the immediate past Governor of the State, Chief (Dr) Godswill Akpabio, had refused, for whatever reason(s), to approve and authorize the release of the 2014 BUDGET OF AKSU.

I am painfully aware that sometime in 2014, when a major University event was in the offing, the State or University authorities placated the affected staff with payment of LEAVE GRANT to most of them. Again, when the 2015 Matriculation was imminent, I heard that the authorities had invited the affected AKSU staff and promised them that within 2-3 weeks, the affected staff will be paid their outstanding salary arrears and other staff would be paid their entitlements.

This pacification (now a deceit) was perpetrated so as to ensure that a salutary atmosphere reigned supreme on the two campuses for Matriculation to take place peaceably. But no sooner had the Matriculation exercise been concluded than the staff were threatened that they will be dismissed if the press should ever hear that they are being owed salary arrears.