The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has suspended its decision to embark on a nationwide strike over non implementation of agreement with the Federal Government.
In a statement the Union said it decided to put on hold the industrial action after the National Executive Council meeting at its Secretariat in University of Abuja over the weekend as consultations were ongoing.
According to the statement, the meeting reviewed the level of government’s implementation of the FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Action of 23rd December, 2020 and other related matters.
In the press statement titled, ‘Enough of blackmail’, signed by ASUU president, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, the lecturers regretted that the Federal Government has turned its back on the plan establish an inter-ministerial committee for the review the draft Renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement.
ASUU had earlier announced plans to commence strike over the Federal Government’s failure to meet its demands.
ASUU is demanding among other things; Earned Academic Allowances, review of the NUC’s Act to curb the proliferation of universities by State Governments who are not funding the existing ones; adoption of the University Transparency Accountability Solutions (UTAS) with concurrent discontinuance of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and distortion in salary payment.
the statement read in part; “NEC is worried by the spirited efforts of government agents to reduce the demands of ASUU to a regime of intermittent payment of watered-down revitalisation fund and release of distorted and grossly devalued Earned Academic Allowances.
“ASUU shall not relent in demanding for improvement in the welfare and conditions of service of our members. However, we shall resist any attempt to blackmail the union and derail our patriotic struggle for a productive university system by official propaganda founded on tokenism and crumb-sharing.
“NEC concluded that government has failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement and subsequent MoUs and MoAs.
“However, considering the ongoing intervention and consultation efforts, NEC resolved to review the situation at a later date with a view to deciding on the next line of action.”
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