ASUU Strike To End On The 9th Of May

ASUU Strike To End On The 9th Of May

Sunday Asefon, the President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), said on Thursday that the union is ready to take to the streets to protest the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ strike.

Mr Asefon made the remark on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme.

According to Mr. Asefon, the government appears uninterested in resolving the strike as attention turns to the 2023 elections.

He mentioned several university students’ protests in Benin City.

“We are talking about education, we are talking about life,” he said. “Our life is no longer being discussed by the leaders, these leaders that we elected; but rather, their focus now is about election. This election that we are talking about is because of their parochial and selfish interest.

“We are battle ready, the highest they can do is to shoot us,” he said. “If they shoot, they will ask their police to shoot us, if we die, the generation coming will know we died because of fighting for them. They would also know that they shot us because they are preparing for election. But we need to take action”

Mr Asefon noted that the government should stop playing politics with the ASUU issue.

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“If you have an opportunity to meet the ASUU and federal government, federal government will tell you they inherited the problem from PDP, the ASUU will tell you this negotiation has been on since when Jonathan was there but what we believe as students is that government is continuous; they should be able to fine tune and find a solution to this matter,” he said.

“We should not be at the receiving end every time and as such, they should stop using us to play politics.”

ASUU’s Demands

On February 14, ASUU began a four-week warning strike.

The union prolonged the strike for another two months on March 14 to allow the government to meet all of its requests.

Academics are demanding better working conditions, the revitalization of public universities, and academic autonomy, among other things.

The non-payment of university revitalisation monies, which total roughly N1.1 trillion, is a source of frustration for academics.

However, the Federal Government has stated that it does not have the funds to pay such a sum, blaming low oil prices during President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure.

According to reports, the agreement was reached in 2009.

The Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System is another concern (IPPIS).

The University Transparency and Accountability Solution, presented by academics, is an alternative payroll system (UTAS).

ASUU TO END STRIKE

This is coming as the eight-week strike extension by the Academic Staff Union of University will end on the 9th of May 2022.

However, no clear end to the lingering strike action on ground.

The permanent secretary ministry of Education, Andrew David Adejo who said this on behalf of Minister of education Adamu on Thursday.

He represented the education minister at the meeting which Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige called to resolve the strike issue

Adejo told leaders of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Non Academic Staff Union that the ministry did not abandon their issues.

ASUU extended their strike by eight more weeks

He pleased that the striking workers should forgive the ministry. The appeal is coming as university lecturers union – ASUU strike remain unresolved.

He added that with the social issues that the strike action caused, it is better for them to sit down and resolve the matter.

This is how students can go back to school. Already university students have carried out demonstrations demanding an end to the strike

Both SSANU and NASU have been on nationwide strike for almost one month now to pressure government to implement what they agreed on paper.

The spokesman for the Joint Action Committee of SSANU and NASU, Adeyemi Peters said there is hope in the apology from the ministry of education and it is genuine.

And they are ready to implement their agreement, Peters add.

University unions strike has paralysed all academic and non-academic activities in all public universities in Nigeria.