August 30, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government has described as unreasonable the decision of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to extend its ongoing industrial action.
THEWILL reports that ASUU had earlier Monday further extended it’s over six months old strike.
The umbrella union of lecturers of the nation’s public universities extended the strike after accusing the federal government of failure to live up to its term in the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement it signed with it.
The action of ASUU came after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting which took place at its University of Abuja Secretariat.
Although the union was yet to come out with official statement or address the media on the fallouts of its meeting which began late Sunday and stretched into early Monday, some members who spoke in secrecy, disclosed that the meeting ended with a resolution to go on indefinite strike.
Reacting to the development, the Director of Press and Public Relations, Federal Ministry of Education, Bem Goong, said the Federal Government has addressed 80 percent of the union’s demands, noting that the extension of strike was irrational.
Goong said: ”If you bring some demands and almost 80% have been attended to, there is no need to drag the strike anymore. It is unreasonable for the strike to be lingering since the government has worked towards fulfilling most of the demands.
“As regards the next steps, the government has already inaugurated a committee to harmonize the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS and the University Peculiar Personnel and Payroll System, U3PS.
“This will ensure that the government will pay with only one payment platform that will harmonize all the technical peculiarities.”
Recall that the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, had last week, claimed that government had resolved most of the demands ASUU.
THEWILL reported that lecturers of the Federal Government owned universities had embarked on strike since February 14, 2022, to demand release of revitalisation funds for universities; deployment of the University Transparency Accountability System (UTAS) for the payment of salaries and allowances of university lecturers; release of earned allowances; the release of the white paper report of the visitation panels to universities and other issues involving the ASUU-FGN 2009 agreement;
Shortly after the commencement of the strike, other university-based unions, including the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) and other allied educational institutions also embarked on strike to push their demands.
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