The Academic Staff Union of Universities has postponed its decision to embark on strike on the grounds of the ongoing consultations.
ASUU had earlier announced plans to embark on a strike over the Federal Government’s failure to meet its demands.
However, the union expressed its decision to hesitate in a statement issued after its National Executive Council meeting over the weekends.
The meeting held at the National Secretariat of ASUU, University of Abuja, on December 18, was to review the level of government’s implementation of the FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Action of December 23, 2020 and other related matters.
The statement, signed by the national president of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, read that the lecturers regretted that the Federal Government turned its back on the plan to set up an inter-ministerial committee to review the draft ‘Renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement.’
The demands by ASUU, apart from the Earned Academic Allowances, included the review of the NUC Act to curb the proliferation of universities by state governments who failed to fund the existing universities; adoption of the University Transparency Accountability Solutions with concurrent discontinuance of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System and distortion in salary payment.
Others are the release of accumulated promotion arrears; and the review and signing of the draft document on the Renegotiation of 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement.
“NEC was worried by the spirited efforts of government agents to reduce the demands of ASUU to a regime of intermittent payment of watered-down revitalisation fund and release of distorted and grossly devalued Earned
Academic Allowances.
“ASUU shall not relent in demanding improvement in the welfare and conditions of service of our members. However, we shall resist any attempt to blackmail the union and derail our patriotic struggle for a productive university system by official propaganda founded on tokenism and crumb-sharing.
“NEC concluded that government has failed to satisfactorily address all the issues
raised in the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement and subsequent MoUs and MoAs.
“However, considering the ongoing intervention and consultation efforts, NEC resolved to review the situation at a later date with a view to deciding on the next line of action,” the statement read.
