Ebonyi State Governor David Umahi, on Thursday, urged members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Ebonyi State University chapter, to call off their warning strike and return to classrooms.

According to the Governor, failure to do so will lead to the withholding of their salaries and other entitlements.

The Governor stated this in a statement signed by Secretary to the State Government, Kenneth Ugballa, a copy of which was made available to The PUNCH.

The lectures, had since, last week embarked on strike action, which they tagged, “Active non-compliance strike action.

The ASUU- EBSU Chapter Chairman, Dr. Ikechukwu Igwenyi, had said the Union decided to embark on the strike because all efforts to make the school management to listen to its demands had been futile.

“All the efforts we have been making to ensure that there is effective communication between ASUU and the management has not yielded fruit and so we decided to embark on what we call active non compliance strike.

“Our work have so many facets. We render community services, we do research as well as teaching. So, we downtool on teaching while we carry out our duties in the areas of research and community services. That is what we mean by active non compliance”, he explained.

But Governor Umahi in the statement disagreed with ASUU and urged them to call off the strike for the sake of the state and their walds.

The statement read in part, “The Governor of Ebonyi State has appealed to the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Ebonyi State chapter, to please call off the strike and go back to work for the interest of the State”.

“The Governor he has personally intervened in the affairs and welfare of ASUU workers in the State and only last year, a total of N1.5 Billion was paid to ASUU by Ebonyi State Government for the accumulative demand of ASUU from the past administration”, the statement said.

Governor Umahi further stated that the demands by the lecturers were not enough reason to embark on the strike action.

“Government also has gone through the issues between ASUU and Management and discovered that most of their demands are more political than a genuine demands thereby making Government to see this demand as not enough to make ASUU embark on any strike action”.

“The Government backed the decision of Management not to pay salaries to any lecturer who has not participated in the Bank Verification Number email, ordered by the state government for all workers in the state. Government will as from Monday March 9, 2020, not allow anybody who has not done his or her BVN registration with banks to also receive salary.”