ASUU Extends Strike By 4 Weeks
Written by COMFORT 95.1FM on August 1, 2022
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has announced an extension of its ongoing more than five-month-old strike by another four weeks.
The union made the announcement in a statement issued on Monday and signed by its National President, Emmanuel Osodeke, citing the failure of the Nigerian government to fulfill its promises and heed the call.
Signed by its President, Emmanuel Osodeke, the statement noted that the decision was taken during an emergency meeting of the union’s National Executive Council on Sunday at its headquarters located on the campus of the University of Abuja.
The union, however, thanked the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), affiliate unions and civil society organisations for trooping out to stage a nationwide protest between 26th and 27th of July.
ASUU said the emergency meeting of its NEC became necessary since it publicly announced a 12-week extension of the strike in May.
It said the Nigerian government has not shown commitment towards resolving the lingering crisis and said the additional four weeks will be observed to monitor the government’s seriousness and commitment to address its concerns.
The statement reads in part; “Following extensive deliberations and taking cognisance of Government’s past failures to abide by its own timelines in addressing issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MOA), NEC resolved that the strike be rolled over for four weeks to give Government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues. The role-over strike action is with effect from 12.01a.m. on Monday, 1st August, 2022.”
ASUU said the NEC meeting took place against the backdrop of government’s obligations “as spelt out in the Memorandum of Action (MoA) it signed with ASUU on 23rd December 2020.”
The union said; “Specifically, NEC recalled that government’s failure to conclude the process of renegotiating the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, deploy the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), pay outstanding arrears of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), release agreed sum of money for the revitalisation of public universities (Federal and States), address proliferation and governance issues in State Universities, settle promotion arrears, release withheld salaries of academics, and pay outstanding third-party deductions led to the initial declaration of the roll-over strike on 14th February, 2022.
