Tag: ASUU

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has lashed out at the Muhammadu Buhari administration for breaching the agreement it reached with public university lecturers. ASUU had “conditionally” suspended its nine-month strike in December 2020 after government promised to honour its agreement with them. The union asked its members to down tools in March 2020 over non-payment of salaries of lecturers who failed to enroll in the Federal Government’s Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and government’s unfulfilled promises. At a press conference by the Ibadan Zone of the union at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso, yesterday addressed by the Coordinator, Prof. Oyebamiji Oyegoke, the group told Nigeria to hold Buhari responsible should the educational system be engulfed in other crisis based on unfulfilled promises. Oyegoke revealed that only salary shortfall and setting up of visitation panels to federal universities had been addressed by government. He said, “Re-negotiation 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 checkoff of unions which were all contained in the December 22, 2020 Memorandum of Action have not been addressed.” Oyegoke added: “The claim by the Minister of Labour and Employment (Chris Ngige) that the money allocated for the 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. That government had been working hard to facilitate the release of money by the CBN since January 2021 leaves a sour taste in the mouth.” According to the group, government’s decision to withhold salaries for months, non-release of EAA, non- payment of checkoff accruing to the union is an invitation to another possible industrial crisis. Oyegoke said, “Moreover, UTAS avowed suitability has been demonstrated admirably to the Minister of Education and members of his team, Senate President and other key stakeholders like the ministries of Labour and Employment; Education, Finance, Office of the Accountant General, representatives of Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). “The more the government insists on fulfilling the demands of integrity test on UTAS, the longer will be the accompanying pains earlier identified in IPPIS on our members.” He added, “At a reconciliation meeting between the Federal Government and leadership of our union on Monday, August 2, 2021 at the conference room of the Minister of Labour and Employment, where all the contentious matters affecting the outstanding issues regarding the implementation of the 2020 FGN/ASUU MoA were discussed, the minister, Dr Chris Ngige, on behalf of the FG promised that a broader government team and the inter-ministerial committee on the draft renegotiated 2009 ASUU-FG agreement would conclude its work and submit the report to government by the end of August 2021…”