Strike: Tell govt to honour our demands – ASUU to stakeholders

The Academic Staff Union Of Universities, Abuja Zone, has called on stakeholders to urge the federal government to honor its agreement with the union to avert another industrial crisis.

The Abuja Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Dr Salahu Mohammed Lawal, has appealed to the stakeholders to mediate the lingering issue.

He made the appeal while addressing a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, saying the government has stired up events that would lead to another round of industrial action by ignoring the outstanding issues in the MoU of December 2020, and the MoA of February 7, 2019.

Lawal said it was now glary to everyone now that the government has failed on all promises, violated all the timeframes set for commensurable actions on key issues, and has as well vitiated her own deadlines to meet these demands, to which he says ASUU was left with a limited option in the predicament.

“We call on critical stakeholders in the education sector to encourage the federal government to honour its promises to the Nigerian people in order to avert another round of strike action by the Nigerian academics. Meeting these key demands of ASUU will go a long way to addressing the deplorable conditions under which our children live and learn.” he said.

Lawal reiterated that the demands of the union has always been “The full implementation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement as renegotiated in 2021, based on ILO’s collective bargaining principles.

He further said: “The implementation of all outstanding provisions in the 7th February 2021 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action and immediate deployment of ASUU’s innovation of a more robust system of human resource management and compensation, called the UTAS.

“Immediate payment of outstanding Earned Academic Allowances and Promotions arrears to our members, immediate release of the report of the Presidential Visitation Panels to Federal Universities 2021and immediate action on the recommendations of the Committee on State Universities

“The implementation of all outstanding provisions in the 7th February 2021 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action and immediate deployment of ASUU’s innovation of a more robust system of human resource management and compensation, called the UTAS.

“Immediate payment of outstanding Earned Academic Allowances and Promotions arrears to our members, immediate release of the report of the Presidential Visitation Panels to Federal Universities 2021and immediate action on the recommendations of the Committee on State Universities.”

“Nothing illustrates the disinterestedness of the Nigerian leaders in quality of education issues more than this consistent discounting of all efforts by ASUU to place the Nigerian universities on the same pedestal with her counterparts overseas.

“It will interest you to note that more than one year since our Union suspended the nine-month-long national strike, the federal government is yet to respond to the key demands.

“The fundamental issues which are key to guarantee industrial harmony in the universities are viz, the signing and implementation of the Renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement; deployment without further delay of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution Revitalization Funds to public universities; payment of the outstanding Earned Academic Allowances to members inconsistencies in salary payment with IPPIS.”

There are usually mixed feelings and divergences of opinion anytime the issue of the strike comes up, while some students lament and wail over it, others do not care and sometimes call for it. Where do you belong?

More so, it is seemingly apparent that the government is not responding to ASUU as they want to be responded to. Do you think the government is really at fault or do you think ASUU is being selfish? Share your thoughts