AAU Denies Owing Staff, Says ‘We’ve Paid February Salary’

The management of the Ambrose Ali University (AAU) in Ekpoma, Edo State says that claims it refused to pay salary to its staff, are untrue.

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

According to reports, the protests, last month, took a dramatic twist when some of the staff dumped a coffin at the main gate of the university.

A statement issued by the acting registrar of the AAU, Ambrose Odiase, 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 the government. It is absurd that these self-serving agitators still add up these eight months as salaries due to 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.”

In other news, Kanyi Daily reported that a total of thirty-seven (37) internet fraudsters, popularly known as “Yahoo Boys” have been convicted and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, fines, and community service.