‘We’ve paid February salary’ — AAU denies owing staff

The management of the Ambrose Ali University (AAU) in Ekpoma, Edo state has dismissed claims that it refused to pay the salary of its staff.

For some weeks now, the varsity has witnessed protests from aggrieved staff who alleged maladministration, intimidation, and victimisation by Sonnie Adagbonyin, the acting vice-chancellor of AAU.

Last month, the protests took a dramatic twist when some of the staff dumped a coffin at the main gate of the university.

But in a statement by Ambrose Odiase, its acting registrar, the institution asked the public to disregard the allegations.

The acting registrar said the varsity’s 2,260 regular staff and pensioners have received their salaries for February.

“Management considers it strange that with all the efforts it has made over the months in the payment of salaries, a group of politicians’ poster boys would still come out and describe the payment as ‘rumour’, ‘selective,” he said.

“The latest payment of February, 2023 salaries is a case in point. It is certainly beyond rumour that over 2,260 regular staff and pensioners have received their February 2023 salaries as at Thursday, including some of the academics making all the loud unintellectual noises in defense of falsehood.

“The records are there for everyone to see and management may be compelled to publish the list of those who have so far been paid.”

Odiase said the management had been paying gross salaries since December 2021, adding that the claim that it owed a 27-month checkoff to the welfare union was untrue.

He, however, said only staff members who refused to be captured in the Edo government’s directed verification and biometric enrollment were not paid.

“Again, all staff members of the University who were verified to have returned to work at the time the Edo State Government directed them to do so, have received their salaries to date,” he added.

“All staff (members), who failed to return to work on the directive of the government and were away on strike for eight months have not received salaries for those months they did not work.

“This is in line with the no-work-no-pay policy directed by government. It is absurd that these self-serving agitators still add up these eight months as salaries due them, when they knew they did not work for them.

“And when they can see that even their counterparts in Federal Universities have been unable to convince the government at the centre to pay them for work not done.”