ASUU postpones strike, says FG wants to blackmail them

The Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU) has postponed its decision to strike, accused the Federal Government and its agencies of blackmail.

And also the union has also resolved to review the situation at a later date with a view to deciding on the next line of action.

More so, the announcement is contained in a press statement titled,  ‘Enough of the blackmail’ issued by the union after an emergency National Executive Council (NEC) meeting at its Festus Iyayi National Secretariat, University of Abuja, on Saturday, December 18, 2021, and signed by its National President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke.

ASUU in the statement said the meeting was held to review the level of government’s implementation of the FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Action of December 23, 2020, and other related matters.

Recall that ASUU had announced plans to embark on a strike over the Federal Government’s failure to meet its demands.

Apart from the Earned Academic Allowances, ASUU said its demands included the review of the NUC Act to curb the proliferation of universities by state governments who are not funding the existing ones; adoption of the University Transparency Accountability Solutions (UTAS) with concurrent discontinuance of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and distortion in salary payment.

“NEC was worried by the spirited efforts of government agents to reduce the demands of ASUU to a regime of intermittent payment of watered-down revitalisation fund and release of distorted and grossly devalued Earned Academic Allowances, the statement read in part.

“ASUU shall not relent in demanding improvement in the welfare and conditions of service of our members. However, we shall resist any attempt to blackmail the union and derail our patriotic struggle for a productive university system by official propaganda founded on tokenism and crumb-sharing.

“NEC concluded that government has failed to satisfactorily address all the issues
raised in the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement and subsequent MoUs and MoAs.

“However, considering the ongoing intervention and consultation efforts, NEC resolved to review the situation at a later date with a view to deciding on the next line of action.”

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