ASUU extends strike by four weeks

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Monday extended the ongoing strike by four weeks.

ASUU president Prof Emmanuel Osodeke announced this in a statement.

The industrial action which has seen many varsities closed started on February 14.

Osodeke said the decision was reached at an emergency national executive committee meeting of the association at the University of Abuja on Sunday.

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

“The NEC meeting took place against the backdrop of government’s obligations as spelled out in the Memorandum of Action (MOA) it signed with ASUU on 23rd December 2020. Specifically, NEC recalled the government’s failure to conclude the process of renegotiating the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, deploy the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), pay outstanding arrears of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), release the agreed to sum of money for the revitalization of public universities (Federal and States), address proliferation and governance issues in State Universities, settle promotion arrears, release withheld salaries of academics, and pay outstanding third-party deductions led to the initial declaration of the roll-over strike on 14th February 2022.”

He added that the NEC viewed with seriousness the recent directive given by President Muhammadu Buhari to the minister of education Adamu Adamu to resolve the lingering crisis and report to him within two weeks.

“NEC appreciated the historic nationwide protest of 26th and 27th July 2022 organised by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in collaboration with Civil Society Organisations (CSO) to further create awareness on the antics of the Nigerian ruling class to destroy public education. ASUU renews its commitment to the struggles of NLC in championing the cause of the working and suffering Nigerians,” the statement said.