Nigeria, April 11 -- The Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, a professor, said on Wednesday that the non-academic staff in Nigerian universities may soon be paid part their withheld salaries.

The minister, who spoke on Wednesday when he featured on Politics Today, a Channels Television programme, maintained that the failure to pay the withheld salaries of the non-academic staff of the universities as done for their academic counterparts was not deliberate.

He said the development was a 'communication problem' and not a discrimination as touted in some quarters. "I believe what happened was a communication problem initially, that was what led to this. It wasn't deliberate to exclude them from that benefit," Mr Mamman said.

The minister...