ASUU hints at another round of strike, blames Nigerian govt for stalling agreements

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has alluded to the possibility of another round of industrial action due to the alleged reticence of the Federal Government to implement agreements.

This was contained in a statement issued on Tuesday by Prof Ayo Akinwole, the ASUU Chairman, University of Ibadan chapter, in Ibadan during an interactive session with newsmen.

According to Akinwole, the FG is yet to ratify the various agreements signed with the ASUU since 2009 which is unacceptable by its members.

“What has been subsisting in the universities since 2009 still remains the same. So, we have agreed, we’ve concluded negotiations with the government’s team in attendance in May, but yet to sign it into Law.

“Rather than submitting it for presidential ascent, what the government wants to do now is to set up another tripartite committee to look again into what took us four years to arrive at.

“This is unacceptable to our union and we are telling the public that government is playing with time bomb in respect to higher education and universities in general,” Akinwole said.

The ASUU leader further disclosed that the intervention of the National Inter Religious Council in December 2021 prevented a nationwide strike.

Akinwole also stated that the FG intentionally delayed the payment of their allowances by asking for a re-review of the UTAS software.

UTAS is the software that ASUU developed for management of personnel, salaries and wages in the university system, which government said would be evaluated by NITDA and deployed in six months.

“Government is asking us after a year of submission to resubmit the software for another re-evaluation. In spite of the fact that the average evaluation scored the software very high, the government is not willing to deploy UTAS.

“We are calling on Nigerians to prevail on them to do the needful in order not to throw the university system into another crisis which they may not be able to manage.

“Another issue is the revitalization of the university system. The government by his own team submitted that it will take N1.3 trillion to revitalise the Nigerian education system to meet up with the West African average way back 2013.

Read also: Labour Minister, Ngige, reacts to ASUU strike threat, says govt can’t fund education alone

“Up till today, government had released just N270 million which leaves a surplus of over one point something trillions yet unreleased. Government promised that N220 million would be released before the end of last year.

“But N30 million was released in addition to N20 million released in 2019 that makes N50 million that government ought to release in 2014. With the additional outstanding N850 million it ought to release for the next four years,” he said.

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