*ASUU: We Hope There Won’t Be Strike In Three Years
RELIEF appears near for students of public universities and their parents as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government, on Wednesday, January 14, signed and unveiled a new agreement aimed at improving the quality of the university education system and ensuring stability.
Shortly after the ceremony ASUU expressed hope that the new agreement will prevent strikes for at least three years.
In recent year, the university lecturers had gone on strike several times to demand increased funding for public universities, better welfare for lecturers and full enforcement of previous agreements.
President of ASUU, Chris Piwuna, said if properly implemented, the new agreement could prevent frequent strikes, adding: “There are measurable aspects of the agreement, and we believe we can monitor it that way.”
Speaking on a television programme, Piwuna stated: “If we monitor it, we can raise concerns before it gets to a head, and we hope that in three years’ time there will be no strike at all until this agreement is reviewed again.”
He said the new agreement incorporates an Implementation Monitoring Team, to be domiciled at the National Universities Commission (NUC) and coordinated by the office of its Executive Secretary, assuring that the committee will continue to monitor the agreement to ensure that it is always respected and properly followed up.
Piwuna confirmed that the 2009 agreement, which had elicited multiple strikes over unresolved issues, has now been replaced by the new pact and all references for implementation by the union will now be made from the new agreement.
He stated further: “It is believed that we now have the 2025 agreement; all references will be made to the 2025 agreement. The 2009 agreement is no longer what we will refer to, but there are aspects of the 1992 agreement signed by Professor Attahiru Jega that we still refer to as a guide to understand why we are where we are- it is history.
“So, 2009 is history, and we will continue to refer to our history so that we are properly guided. But for implementation, there is really nothing in the 2009 agreement that we are going to implement; it will be the 2025 agreement.”
