THE Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has extended its 85-day-old strike by three months.
The union began a one-month warning strike on February 14, following the failure of the Nigerian government to meet its demands.
On March 14, the lecturers extended the strike by eight weeks, which terminated on Monday.
ASUU president Emmanuel Osodeke, a professor, announced on Monday that the strike would continue for the next three months to give the government more time to address the union’s demands.
He stated this when featuring on Raypower FM’s programme, ‘Political Platform’ on Monday.
According to him, “ASUU is extending its action because the government has refused to address the issues.
“The two-month rollover strike declared on March 14, 2022, by ASUU ended today. Thus NEC felt the need to extend it by 12 weeks after initial agitation for an indefinite strike because of failure to address the issues in contention.”
The warning strike elapsed on Monday as meetings between the government and the union have failed to end the impasse.
Between 1999 and now, ASUU has downed tools over 49 times in the country’s 49 federal universities and 57 state universities.
Some of the union’s demands are renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU agreement with the Federal Government, non-implementation of the Memorandum of Action (MoA) signed with the government in December 2020 on funding for revitalisation of public universities, and payment of earned academic allowances.
The union is also complaining about non-remittance of third-party deductions.
Another outstanding issue is the lecturers’ insistence on the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), a payment platform developed by ASUU to replace the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) which is being used by Federal Government to pay its employees.
ASUU is also insisting on payment of promotion arrears and withheld salaries.
(ICIR)
