Benin City – The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Abuja zone, yesterday, insisted that there will be no resumption in public Universities until the Federal Government accede to the renegotiated 2009 agreement and the University Transparency and Accountability Solution deployed.
This was made known by the Zonal Coordinator, Dr Salawu Lawal, at a press conference at the University of Abuja in Gwagwalada, on Monday.
According to him, the insensitivity of the Federal Government has made it impossible for its members to return to their duty posts.
Lawal said, “You would recall that the Academic Staff Union of Universities declared a four-week rolling strike at the University of Lagos National Executive Council meeting held on February 14.
“Owing to the failure of the Federal Government to act within that period, the national action was rolled over for another eight weeks following the resolution taken at an emergency NEC meeting at the Festus Iyayi National Secretariat on March 14.
“The action, as you are probably aware is to, among other things, compel the Federal Government to sign and implement the draft renegotiated 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement submitted to it by the Prof. Munzali Committee in May 2021.
“Deploy for use in the Nigerian university system, was the home-grown payment and personnel solution called UTAS developed by ASUU as replacement for the failed IPPIS.
“As usual, the Federal Government has ignored ASUU’s call for full implementation of that famous agreement and other memoranda signed with the union.
“No meeting has been held between the two parties since the commencement of the ongoing strike. The only exception is our union’s re-submission of UTAS for a retest.
“The summary is that unless and until the renegotiated 2009 agreement is signed and implemented and UTAS deployed, there will be no work in public universities.”
In a related development, ASUU, Benin Zone, has also appealed to Nigerians to join the union in rescuing what it called a dying University system.
In a press briefing at the ASUU Secretariat, University of Benin, Edo State, the Zonal Coordinator, Prof Fred Esumeh, said the union called on well-meaning Nigerians to rise up and join it in repositioning the nation’s Universities to a globally competitive level that would be able to produce the manpower needed to startup the comeback of a country driven by technology.
