After conditionally suspending its nine-month strike in December 2020, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday threatened to embark on another industrial action.
The Ibadan zone of the union who stated this in a press conference held at the Ladoke Akintola University addressed by the coordinator, Prof Oyebamiji Oyegoke, lashed out at the federal government for breaching the agreement it reached with the union.
Oyebamiji flanked by the in the ASUU chairpersons of UI, Prof Ayo Akinwole; UNILORIN, Prof Moyosore Ajao; LAUTECH, Dr Biodun Olaniran and KWASU, Dr Shehu Salau, asked Nigerians to hold the federal government responsible should the educational system be engulfed in another crisis.
ASUU stated that only salary shortfall and setting up of visitation panels to federal government-owned universities had been addressed by the government.
He said, renegotiation of conditions of service, injection of revitalisation funds, payment of earned academic allowances, implementation of University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), proliferation of state universities, release of withheld salaries and non-remittance of check-off dues of unions which were all contained in the December 22, 2020 Memorandum of Action have not been addressed.
Oyegoke stated that “the claim by the minister of Labour and Employment that the money allocated for revitalization of public universities had been paid as contained in the MoA of 2020 cannot be true.
“The same minister confirmed on August 2, 2021, that the money is still in the custody of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) only awaiting application by the minister of Education for eventual transfer to the NEEDS Assessment Fund Account.”
Culled from the Leadership News Nigeria
