After prolonged deliberations, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has declared a nationwide strike following the Federal Government’s inability to implement agreements which the union had previously committed to.
While announcing this decision at a press conference on Monday after a two-day meeting of the union’s National Executive Council (NEC). the President of the union, Emmanuel Osodeke stressed that the industrial action, which begins immediately, would be ‘comprehensive and total’.
Africa Daily News, New York reports that amongst the demands tabled by lecturers include the revitalisation of public universities, earned allowance, improved funding of State universities, and promotion arrears.
Others are the replacement of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) with its own University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) in the payment of emoluments to its member.
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Before the latest move, the union had embarked on a sensitisation campaign across campuses in the country, leading to lecture-free periods. ASUU also said the 2009 agreement reached with the Federal Government ought to be reviewed every three years. But the union said since the deal was renegotiated, the Federal Government has failed to sign and implement the contents.
In 2020, ASUU had embarked on a nine-month strike over the government’s failure to honour its part of the deal. The lecturers, however, called off the strike after a series of meetings with the Federal Government.
Following the suspension, the Minister of Labour, Employment and Productivity, Chris Ngige, had vowed not to allow the lecturers to go on strike again.
‘I will not give ASUU the opportunity to go on strike because I have three biological children that suffered from this imbroglio that we found ourselves in and about 15 people on my scholarship in Nigerian universities,’ the Minister had said just a few days after the lecturers suspended the strike.
Africa Daily News, New York recalls that in November, ASUU issued a three-week ultimatum to the government over the handling of the deal which the Federal Government has now defaulted in.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
