The Union of Academic Staff of Universities (ASUU) has hinted at the possibility of imminent industrial action, as the union’s national leadership has ordered its members across the country to declare a conference-free day on Monday, February 7, in preparation for a possible showdown with the Nigerian government.
Multiple circulars issued by the various branches of the union announcing the decision, noted that the non-lecture day will be used to raise awareness within the university communities and the general public about the government’s failure to comply with an agreement the parties entered into in December 2020, and which then led to the suspension of a prolonged strike of nine months.
The new threat comes less than a week after President Muhammadu Buhari pledged his administration’s commitment to honor the agreement with the union.
Mr. Buhari made the pledge when members of the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) visited him to share thoughts with him on persistent problems.
In making the promise, Mr. Buhari, however, pleaded with the union to be patient and consider current economic realities.
strike suspended
ASUU’s last national strike was in March 2020 and lasted until December when the Memorandum of Action (MoA) was signed.
However, a year after signing the MoA, ASUU accused the government of not living up to its end of the bargain and threatened to mobilize for another strike immediately.
The government moved quickly to pay N55 billion as part payment from the Earned Academic Allowance and Revitalization Fund, but the union did not move until the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) and other dignitaries intervened.
The president of ASUU speaks
ASUU National President Emmanuel Osedeke, a professor, confirmed the directive and also that the national body had instructed all chapters to raise public awareness “of the nobility of their cause.”
“We are going to have a meeting that day, we will invite as many people as possible to talk about the issue of education in Nigeria,” he told our reporter in a telephone interview on Saturday.
ASUU said the Nigerian government has only partially addressed two of its eight demands, including panel visits to federal universities. He described the release of funds for Earned Academic Allowance and revitalization funds as ‘partial’.
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Osodeke said, “Of the nine or eight issues, they tried one or two things, even the visiting panel issue they said they set up so far, the outcome is not known after more than a year.”
day off from conferences
Meanwhile, PREMIUM TIMES has seen the circulars from Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto; Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and Bayero University, Kano inform students of a non-lecture Monday on February 7.
ASUU assured that its actions are in the best interest of the country’s university system, and called on everyone to join ASUU in its fight and save the system from collapse.
Parts of the BUK statement, signed by Haruna Musa and Yusuf Madugu, President and Secretary, respectively, read: “ASUU-BUK wishes to inform all stakeholders that any action taken by ASUU would be in the best interest of the Nigerian university system. The union therefore urges all stakeholders to join ASUU in saving the system from imminent collapse by convincing the government to urgently implement all the agreements it freely signed with ASUU.”
According to the circulars, the different chapters of the union are also going to hold a congress on that day.
Lawsuits
ASUU’s demands have hardly changed since the signing of the 2009 ASUU/FG agreement.
These demands include the sustainability of university autonomy, which he said violates the introduction of IPPIS; immediate deployment of UTAS to replace IPPIS; renegotiation of the ASUU-FGN agreement of 2009; disclosure of the reports of the visiting panels to the federal universities and distortions in the contestations of the payment of salaries.
Others include funding for revitalization of public universities, earned academic allocation, underfunding of state universities, and delays in promotion.