The Academic Staff Union of Universities has again issued a 21-day ultimatum to the Federal Government, insisting on strike over unresolved issues with the authorities.
ASUU president, Emmanuel Osodeke, who addressed journalists yesterday at a press briefing at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State, listed the issues to include “emergency revitalisation fund of public universities; payment of outstanding earned academic allowances and release of withheld salaries, promotion arrears, and third-party deductions of our members.”
“The other issues, according to Osodeke, include stoppage of illegal recruitments, proliferation of public universities/abuse of universities’ laws, regulations and processes and removal of universities from the treasury single account and new IPPIS to herald the autonomy of our universities.”
Osodeke explained that the Academic Staff Union of Universities held its National Executive Council meeting at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, between Saturday 17 and August 18, 2024, where the union undertook a comprehensive review of the outcomes from its engagements with federal and State governments on various outstanding issues that have encumbered the development of Nigerian universities and “hindered university workers’ drive to reposition them for the transformation of Nigeria.”
He said: “The meeting further appraised worsening living and working conditions in our universities and the nation at large. The meeting received alarming reports on the failed promises of the Government to address the lingering issues that forced the Union to embark on the nationwide strike action of February-October 2022.
“The meeting further appraised worsening living and working conditions in our universities and the nation at large. The meeting received alarming reports on the failed promises of the Government to address the lingering issues that forced the union to embark on the nationwide strike action of February-October 2022.
“Seasoned and experienced scholars have continued to flee to countries that are less resource-endowed, but where their expertise is better appreciated. Reports presented to NEC indicate that the government does not appreciate the enormity of the problem and the dire need to arrest the ugly trend with utmost urgency.
“Our union is worried that Government appears fixated on its self-serving approach of legalistic and bureaucratic arm-twisting.”
Saying that ASUU regrets that university issues over the Union has been engaging federal and State governments “in the last decade or so, including review and signing of the renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement; impactful funding, are yet to be meaningfully addressed,” Osodeke said the Union had no choice but to take the only action open to them to force government to do the needful: strike.
Accordingly, he said that “after extensive deliberations on the foregoing, among others,” ASUU-NEC at its last meeting resolved to:
1) Condemn “in strong terms” the seeming refusal of federal and State governments to “decisively address all outstanding issues with ASUU
2) Reject the “slow pace of intervention by the Minister for Education in resolving the aforementioned issues
3) And give the government a 21-day ultimatum to address all outstanding issues, “and reconvene at the expiration of the 21 days’ notice to take appropriate decision(s) as deemed necessary.”
Osodeke affirmed ASUU’s belief in national dialogue but warned against interpretations of “every patriotic” action by individuals or groups” along “ethnic suspicion, religious bigotry, plutocratic tendencies and such other practices that are inimical to our peaceful co-existence and collective happiness as a people of one nation.”
