Contrary to the recent assertion by some people on social media, the administration of Ambrose Ali University (AAU), Ekpoma in Edo state, have refuted charges of owing any personnel of the institution the sum of 32 months arrears.
Prof. Asomwan Sonnie Adagbonyin, the Institution’s Acting Vice Chancellor, made the disavowal on Tuesday in Ekpoma, the administrative capital of Esan West Local Government Area in the state.
He regarded the people’s accusation against the institution as blatant mischief, with a planned desire to turn facts on its head while also eliciting emotion.
The Vice Chancellor said that on Tuesday, 1710 staff members of the institution, including academic, senior non-teaching, and junior personnel, got their August pay, as well as 634 University pensioners.
He stated: “I welcome you to this briefing, which tries to clarify one of the topics facing this University (AAU) that has recently dominated the media landscape.
“You are aware of a popular video in which some people claimed that University workers were owed several months’ salary, the most being 32 months.
“The sweeping generalizations made by the speakers in that video demonstrated clear mischief and a desire to turn truth on its head, incite emotion, and cast the University in a shadow of wickedness, lack of empathy, brutality, and incapacity.”
“This University (AAU) does not owe any employee or group of employees 32 months’ salary. Any claim by anyone of being owed 32 months salaries is not only false but also deceptive, given that AAU academic staff joined the 8-month national strike and the no-work-pay rule was implemented.”
Prof. Adagbonyin stated that anyone not on the institution’s payroll cannot lay claim to its employees, as indicated in the viral video, and that AAU has never demonstrated a lack of capacity to pay its employees.
He also stated that the University has met its salary obligations to its employees by implementing a “Pay Day” on the 27th of each month.
Adagbonyin claimed that in 2021, AAU performed a biometric/staff verification exercise in which several of its employees were discovered to have fabricated their ages and official records, and that in fear of being detected, they abandoned the exercise entirely.
He stated that individuals who refused to engage in the staff biometric exercise or failed to finish the process had their names removed from the payroll, and that “the same applies to those who are facing disciplinary issues”.
According to the Vice Chancellor, “one of the complainants in the trending video is known to have begun his biometric verification but did not complete the exercises.”
“Rather than redeem himself through the several opportunities available to him, he abandoned the exercise altogether and has continued to launch campaigns of calumny against the University” , according to him.
While advising people to submit to the biometric exercise like the institution’s ASUU chairman, especially since the school’s administration would be gracious enough to give them the opportunity to complete their exercises, Prof. Adagbonyin warned that AAU would not be intimidated or distracted by anyone.
