Anxiety as ASUU Further Extends Strike by Four Weeks

By Adedapo Adesanya

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has again extended the ongoing strike by four weeks with effect from Monday, August 1, 2022, to give the government enough time to resolve all outstanding issues with the lecturers.

This was disclosed by the president of the union, Mr Emmanuel Osodeke, in a statement on Monday.

The ASUU leader stated that the body conveyed an emergency National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting at the University of Abuja on Sunday.

“Following extensive deliberations and taking cognisance of the 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 the government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues. The roll-over strike action is with effect from 12.01 am on Monday, 1st August 2022,” the statement read.

Specifically, NEC recalled the 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 the agreed sum of money for the revitalization 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.

The group said it “observed that non-signing of the draft renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement more than one month after it was concluded by Professor Nimi Briggs-led Committee is further tasking the patience of ASUU members nationwide.”

it was further disclosed that the “cumulative indifference by the political class gave vent to a pervasive atmosphere of insecurity which now threatens the seamless provision of educational services in the country. The unceremonious closure of educational institutions in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), following the recent attack on Presidential Guards, betrays a panicky measure to addressing a malignant ailment. Nothing short of a comprehensive overhaul of the security architecture of the country will sustainably address the problem.”