The Federal Polytechnic Offa chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has been granted permission to stage a protest if the institution's management proceeds with plans to halt the deduction of union check-off dues from May salaries.

The national headquarters of ASUP confirmed the approval in a statement signed by National Chairman Shammah Kpanja.

Dr Idowu Atilola, ASUP Chairman at the Offa Federal Polytechnic, stated in a Friday announcement: "This will mark the beginning of our union's resistance," as the chapter has been authorised to challenge the management's decision, which it deems an act of intimidation against the union.

"Regrettably, the Rector of the institution, Dr Kamoru Kadir, was a former ASUP chairman and presidential aspirant in ASUP. He shall be served with the full dose of his prescriptions when he held sway as ASUP chairman in the Federal Polytechnic, Offa.”

Dr Atilola vowed that ASUP will not abdicate its historic responsibility of ensuring good governance in the polytechnic system, adding: "We will not be intimidated out of this responsibility by the gang-up of a few, and therefore we will be confronting this threat with an equivalent reaction across campuses and nationally."

The union alleged that the plot to destabilise ASUP goes beyond the poorly thought-out position of the committee of Federal Polytechnic Rectors regarding union check-off dues deductions.

"We have received credible information of plans by the committee and some individual rectors to fund, sponsor, and facilitate unregistered and non-existent bodies as splinter groups of ASUP.

"We are fully briefed on the few rectors behind this plot, and we are certain that it will fail, as always.

"For clarity purposes, the Labour Act is unambiguous in relevant sections, including but not limited to the references made by the Rectors’ committee. Section 5 of the Act deals with deductions in its different forms.

"Section 5(3a, b) is very clear on the responsibility of an employer to make deductions and remittances in favour of a registered Trade Union from the wages of eligible members of such a Trade Union.

"We are therefore taken aback by the insistence of a body like the Rectors Committee, which is indeed an equivalent body to the Vice-Chancellors in the university system and provosts from the colleges of education, to reason in this manner, if these other two bodies can never contemplate doing so," said the ASUP national chairman.

The union, therefore, asked the Rectors Committee of Federal Polytechnics to re-evaluate their continued existence and justification for the deployment of scarce resources in the Federal polytechnics to service the same.