Federal Govt Kicks As ASUU Extends Strike By Two Months

The Federal Government has kick as ASUU extend its strike by two months, The Nation report.

Hope of an early resolution of the dispute between varsity teachers and their employers – the Federal Government – dimmed yesterday.

The teachers, under the auspices of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) announced the extension of their one-month old strike by two months.

ASUU and the Federal Government have not been on the same page on issues relating to the revitalisation of public universities; earned academic allowances; University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS); promotion arrears; renegotiation of 2009 ASUU-FG Agreement and inconsistency in Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

The Federal Government, through the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, told reporters that all of the demands of ASUU had been met.

Nwajiuba spoke after ASUU announced a rollover of its strike by eight weeks at the end of its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting at its National Secretariat, University of Abuja, on Sunday.

The minister spoke on the sidelines of the commemoration of the 2022 Commonwealth celebration in Abuja.

In a statement by its President Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, ASUU said the eight-week extension was to give the government enough time to address its demands in “concrete terms”.

The statement reads: “NEC, having taken reports on the engagements of the Trustees and Principal Officers with the government, concluded that government had failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) within the four-week roll-over strike period.

“NEC resolved that the strike be rolled over for another eight (8) weeks to give the government more time to address all the issues in concrete terms so that our students will resume as soon as possible.

“The roll-over strike shall commence by 12.01am on Monday, 14th March, 2022.”

But Nwajiuba faulted the action taken by ASUU, insisting that the federal government had met all the demands.

According to him, all the earned allowances, as well as revitalisation funds, had been released by the government.

He said: “ASUU announced and we met and everything that they have demanded, we have done all of them, including the earned allowances and the revitalisation fund; they choose to extend it for two months maybe.”

On February 14, ASUU declared a warning strike following the failure of the g to deploy the UTAS and meet other demands.

ASUU also attributed their action on the non-implementation of the re-negotiated 2009 agreement since May last year.

It accused the government of working UTAS, a payment platform designed by ASUU as an alternative to the IPPIS.

Despite a series of meetings with the federal government team chaired by Labour and Employment Minister Chris Ngige, both sides have failed to reach an agreement.

The Vice Chancellor of Bells University of Technology, Ota, in Ogun State, Prof. Jeremiah Ojediran, called for quick resolution of the impasse.

Ojediran, who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ota, said the extension of the nationwide strike would be detrimental to the nation’s education system.

The vice chancellor added that the strike would prolong the time students would spend in school.

He said: “It is unfair to the students to extend the strike by eight weeks, because this is not good for our educational system.

“The federal government needs to be proactive and come up with something positive to end the strike.”

Prof Ojediran urged the parties to resolve all issues to end the continuous strike in the country’s university system.