The Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities, ASUU has revealed that the union may embark on an indefinite industrial action soon as it declared Monday, February 7th as a lecture-free day to sensitize stakeholders for the strike. The national president of the Union, Professor Emmanuel Osedeke made this known to the General public after ASUU general meeting. Accordingly, Vigil360 stumbled on some circulars issued in respect of the impending strike noted that the lecture-free day would be an avenue to sensitize stakeholders and the general public that failure of government to honor its own side of the agreement they signed in December 2020 with ASUU, the union is left with no option than to embark on industrial action.
The strike threat came in less than a week when president Buhari pledged the commitment of his administration to fulfilling the agreement it entered into with ASUU.
Buhari made the pledge when members of the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) paid him a courtesy visit to discuss with him the lingering crises of ASUU in decades.
Mr. President pleaded with the Union to exercise little patience sighting the countries current economic woes as the reason.
ASUU suspended its last industrial action in December 2020 when it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Federal Government; the MOU ASUU accused the government to have failed to honor.
Although the Federal government hurriedly paid N55 billion as the Academic earn allowance, one of the numerous problems ASUU demanded.
ASUU leadership through its National President, Prof. Osedeke said, “We are going to have a meeting that day, we will invite as many people as possible to talk about the issue of Nigerian education,”
Osedeke added, “Out of all the nine or eight issues, they attempted one or two things, even the issue of the visitation panel they said they set up till now the result is not out after more than one year.”
Meanwhile, part of the circular Vigil360 sighted from BUK signed by its ASUU chairman, Haruna Musa said in part, “ASUU-BUK wishes to inform all stakeholders that any action taken by ASUU would be in the best interest of the Nigerian university system.
The union, therefore, urges all concerned to join hands with ASUU in order to salvage the system from imminent collapse by prevailing on the government to as a matter of urgency implement all the agreements it freely entered with ASUU”.
Part of the demands by ASUU through numerous include; the sustainability of the university autonomy, which it said the introduction of IPPIS violates; immediate deployment of UTAS to replace IPPIS; renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement; release of the reports of visitation panels to federal universities and distortions in salary payment challenges among others.
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