Nigeria’s public university system is on the brink of total collapse as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has extended its ongoing strike by three months.
ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, said at the end of the union National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting which held in Abuja on Sunday that the union resolved to give the government enough time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.
“After extensive deliberations, noting Government’s failure to live up to its responsibilities and speedily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) within the additional eight-week roll–over strike period declared on 14th March 2022, NEC resolved that the strike be rolled over for twelve weeks to give Government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.
“The roll-over strike action is with effect from 12.01 a.m. on Monday, 9th May 2022. The National Executive Council (NEC) of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) held an emergency meeting on Sunday, 8th May 2022 at the Comrade Festus Iyayi National Secretariat, University of Abuja, Abuja,” he said.
The strike started on February 14, 2022, announced a four-week total and comprehensive warning strike following the inability of the union and the Federal Government to reach common ground on the demands of university lecturers.
Some of ASUU’s demands include the release of revitalization funds for universities, renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, release of earned allowances for university lecturers, and deployment of the UTAS payment platform for the payment of salaries and allowances of university lecturers.
Following the expiration of the initial four weeks of the warning strike, the union had gone ahead to declare another eight weeks saying that it was giving the government more time to attend to its needs.