ASUU Threatens Another Industrial Action
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU has threatened to go on another strike action following the failure of the Federal government to implement the memorandum of Action they reached in 2020.
ASUU members in the North East held a meeting in Adamawa state on Sunday, December 12, where they appealed to Nigerians to lend their voices to the calls to the Federal government to implement the memorandum of action they reached for them to call off its 9-months old strike in December 2020, News Agency of Nigeria reports.
The union said Nigerians should blame the Federal government if it embarks on a fresh round of strike action as it may be difficult to resolve the lingering issues with the government. Musa Abdullahi, former ASUU financial secretary said:
”It would be very uncharitable for Nigerians to blame ASUU this time around. ASUU is the only organization that keeps listening to public opinions. It is the government that said don’t worry we will do this, we go off strike and you did not do it.
What is there that the government cannot do? A student in medical college doesn’t know what I telescope to measure BP? They say tell them Theory. We are teaching today and we say according to a book in 1953 when our mates are using high digitals in COVID period.”
Also speaking, Zonal coordinator of ASUU in Yola, Reuben Jonathan, called on all concerned citizens especially religious leaders and traditional rulers to prevail on the Federal government to implement the agreement reached so they can shelve the proposed strike action.
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The leadership of the union had in November threatened to resume the suspended strike action following what it described as unfaithfulness of the Federal Government in the implementation of the terms of the agreement in the Memorandum of Action (MoA) signed by both parties upon which the last strike action was suspended.
According to ASUU, some of the agreements reached and not yet fulfilled include;
”The N30bn revitalisation fund for public universities purported to be kept in a dedicated account at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was yet to be disbursed even when the majority of Vice-Chancellors had successfully defended their proposals as a condition precedent to accessing the fund.
The proposal defence exercise which took place from October 2021, was followed by the transmission of the report to the Minister of Finance for the release of allocated funds to the successful universities.
On the strength of this, representatives of the Federal Government gave assurance that the qualified universities would get the funds on or before the end of October 4 to 8, 2021.
Surprisingly, as of today, November 15, 2021, government is yet to fulfil its promise, with no cogent reason made available to our union.
Earned Academic Allowances: At the meeting, the Executive Secretary (ES) of the National Universities Commission (NUC) informed ASUU that N22.127bn had been appropriated in the 2021 budget as Earned Academic Allowance (EEA) based on a weighted average of annual salary appropriated for each university.
It was then agreed that the Ministry of Education would take one week while the Ministry of Finance would take up to the end of October 2021 within which payment would be effected. As of today, nothing has been done to implement this agreement.”
