Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State has threatened to withhold the salary of the striking lecturers in the state-owned university if they fail to resume work.
He made the threat during an interactive session with some youths as part of the activities marking the independence anniversary at the weekend.
He said the lecturers have no reason whatsoever to continue with the strike.
“The issues raised by ASUU branches in federal universities are not the same with what obtains in the state university.
“If they have other issues they should come forward with them, otherwise we will not pay them their salary until they go back to the classroom,” he warned.
He urged the ASUU branch to resume work if indeed they have the interest of the state and their students at heart.
He said last month, he stopped the payment of their salary because he had been magnanimous enough by paying them more than five months’ salary without work.
On his administration’s achievements so far, Tambuwal said he would like to be remembered not for the many ongoing and accomplished constructions, flyovers, building of schools, but for his contributions to human capital development.
He said that is why he is building a girl-child, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) focused academy in Kasarawa and the Sokoto state university teaching hospital.
He said the administration has equally been working conscientiously on stemming the tide of the preponderance of high numbers of out-of-school children.
Hitherto, the state had over 800,000 out-of school children, but now the number has dropped to just about 285,000. “So, the efforts is yielding positive result,” notes the Governor.
In his remarks, the commissioner of information, who is also the overseer of the ministry of youths and sports development, Akibu Dalhatu, thanked the governor for carrying the youths in the state along by initiating various empowerment programmes that benefited them.
