THE Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has clarified that it was planning to embark on strike in the nearest future, if the Federal Government implements the agreements reached in the next two weeks.
Recall that ASUU had threatened to embark on strike over the non-implementation of agreements reached with the Federal Government.
Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, had on June 26, invited the union for a meeting to deliberate on the lingering issues affecting universities and to avert the planned strike.
ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday (NAN), lamented that none of the agreements reached with the Federal Government had been implemented.
“At the meeting called by the Minister of Education, we agreed that after two weeks, we will meet to see the progress the government has made.
“We will also see what we will do next, if government fail to implement the agreements reached.
“The meeting in the next two weeks is to see what they have done, which will inform our decision.”
The ASUU president said some of the demands include the non-implementation of the 2009 re-negotiated agreements, which had lingered for over six years without the government implementing them.
Osodeke said the academic allowances due to their members had also accumulated for over six years and nothing had been done about it
On the issue of revitalisation Fund, he said they agreed on the NEEDs Assessment Report to raise N200billion yearly for five years, but added: “Since 2013, only one has been paid. We need revitalisation fund to upgrade our universities to standard, so that we can be having students and lecturers from outside the country.”
Osodeke stated that the government was yet to stop the proliferation of universities, adding that many new universities were being approved without funds to run them.
He noted that the government was also yet to exit the university salary payment from Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), as approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in January 2024, noting that his members were still being paid by IPPIS against the FEC directive.
