Salary Stoppage amidst COVID-19 Lockdown and Coping Strategies by Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in Nigeria

Globally, nations have been facing serious socio-economic hardship occasioned by the novel COVID-19 virus. Nigeria as a nation has had its own share of socio-economic downturn as many activities were shutdown to contain the spread of the virus in the absence of vaccine. Apart from general lockdown and interstate border closure, which crippled economic activities in Nigeria and plunged many Nigerians into hardship and starvation, lecturers in federal universities and their families were further subjected into harsh living conditions as the Nigerian government stopped their salaries for months without COVID-19 palliatives for failure to register with Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS). This study seeks to find out how lecturers coped with the lockdown without salaries. In-depth interview was used for data collection, and analysed using themes and quotes. Twenty-four lecturers were purposively selected for the study. Findings from the study revealed that most lecturers took loans to enable them feed, while others used their cars for shuttles/taxis. The results further indicated that lecturers who have lands went into farming for food production, while some others engaged in home lessons for the children of the rich to make ends meet. The study recommends amongst others that both the Federal Government (FG) and ASUU should always have their seats in the round table to negotiate and resolve differences instead of recurrent industrial crisis. Social workers as conflict resolution specialists should also be employed in the federal ministry of labour and employment as well as have them in the leadership of ASUU