More misery for Nigerian students, as ASUU again extends strike by four weeks

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU has extended the ongoing industrial action, which commenced, over five months ago by another four weeks.

After the Federal Government failed to put into effect a Memorandum of Action (MoA) signed by the two parties in 2020, the striking lecturers closed down public universities on February 14, 2022.

In a statement released on Monday, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, the national president of ASUU, explained that the decision to prolong the strike was made to give the Nigerian government more time to resolve all of the outstanding issues brought up.

The development came subsequent to an emergency meeting of the National Executive Council of the union conducted at the Comrade Festus Iyayi National Secretariat, University of Abuja, on Sunday.

Osodeke said 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 Government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.

Read also:Peter Obi decries Nigerian govt’s misuse of public funds, ASUU strike

The statement reads in part, “Following extensive deliberations and taking cognisance of 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 Government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.

“NEC viewed with seriousness the recent directive given by the President and Visitor to all Federal Universities that the Minister of Education, in consultation with other government officials, should resolve the lingering crisis and report to him within two weeks. The Union wonders why it had taken five full months and needless muscle-flexing for government to come to the realisation of the need for honest engagement.

“NEC acknowledged the growing understanding of the issues and the groundswell of support for the Union’s principled demand for globally competitive university education in Nigeria. Nigerian universities must not be reduced to constituency projects that merely exist on paper and our scholars must be incentivised to stay back and do what they know best, here in Nigeria.

“The role-over strike action is with effect from 12.01am on Monday, 1st August 2022.”

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