ASUU: FG instructs VCs to reopen schools after seven months

ASUU: The FG instructs VCs to reopen schools after seven months

The Federal Government has instructed university vice-chancellors to reopen their institutions and permit students to resume their classes.

Since nearly seven months ago, the Academic Staff Union of Universities has been on strike.

The association is requesting money from the FG for the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS), Earned Academic Allowances, and Promotion Arrears.

Others include the 2009 ASUU-FG Agreement’s renegotiation and the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System’s discrepancy.

Remember how the federal government challenged the association’s action in court? The national industrial court last week granted the federal government’s request for an interlocutory order to stop ASUU from extending the strike through judge Polycarp Hamman of the NIC.

Femi Falana, a human rights attorney and senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), questioned the decision, claiming that the national industrial court lacked jurisdiction to decide the dispute between the federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

However, the Federal Government, weary of the ongoing protest, instructed vice-chancellors to reopen schools and allow students to resume lectures through the National Universities Commission.

The Federal Government (FG) gave instructions to all vice-chancellors, pro chancellors, and chairs of governing councils of federal universities to reopen schools in a letter that was made public to journalists on Monday. It was signed by the Director, Finance and Accounts of the NUC, Sam Onazi, on behalf of the commission’s Executive Secretary, Professor Abubakar Rasheed.

“Ensure that ASUU members immediately resume/commence lectures; Restore the daily activities and routines of the various University campuses”, part of the letter read.