The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has decried alleged failure by the Federal government to implement an agreement signed with the union, threatening to embark on a fresh round of strike.
The union thus gave the government till August 31 to reach out to its leaders, failing which it will activate the procedure of embarking on strike.
ASUU had embarked on a strike in March last year, following its disagreement with the Federal government over the funding of the universities and the ineffectiveness and discrepancies around the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and others.
However, ASUU developed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution to replace IPPIS and had several meetings with the Ministries of Finance, Education, Labour and Employment, and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation before it was approved but yet to be implemented.
Furthermore, the government and ASUU signed an agreement aimed at resolving some of the demands of ASUU, a development that led to the suspension of the strike on December 24, 2020.
After a meeting with the government on August 2, 2021, ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke said the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency insisted that UTAS must be re-presented to the end-users.
Also at the meeting, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, assured ASUU that the N22billion earned allowance captured in the 2021 supplementary budget would soon be accessed by university workers.
On the contrary, Osodeke, according to media report, said the government had stopped reaching out to ASUU and had failed to implement the agreement reached.
Due to the government’s silence over their demands, Osodeke said the union would not hesitate to embark on a fresh strike to protest the government’s failure.
He said: “The government has refused to reach out to us. Government officials have stopped. In fact, they don’t take our calls again. Nigerians should tell the government to do what they agreed to do.
“We signed an agreement and even in May, we reached a final agreement; this is August and nothing has been implemented. Does it make any sense? We are giving them till the end of August and after that, we start the procedures.”
