Another Strike Looms As ASUU Reveals FG Yet To Meet Most Of Our Demands

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has stated that the Federal Government has yet to answer the majority of the requests it expressed during the 2022 strike.

After a series of conversations with the Federal Government, ASUU called off an eight-month strike in October 2022. The release of university revitalization money, renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, release of earned allowances for university professors, and implementation of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution are all part of the lecturers’ demands (UTAS).

ASUU president, Emmanuel Osodeke, told Channels TV on Thursday, April 6, that the government has yet to answer most of its demands, including the payment of salary backlogs.

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“As far as this present government is concerned, once the strike is over, the issue is resolved unknown to them that a strike is a symptom of a problem. They have abandoned the problem. Since we called off the strike based on a court directive, not a single meeting has been called. Not a kobo has been paid,” he said.

Notwithstanding the government’s stance, he claims that union members are struggling to satisfy the academic schedule.

“It’s very bad that they don’t care about the Nigerian school system,” Osodeke remarked.

The ASUU president also discussed the newly agreed N320.3 billion investment for public tertiary institutions in 2023. He praised the administration for releasing the funds and requested that 90% of the funds be redistributed to academic institutions.

“It (N320bn fund) is a good development, this is part of what we struggle for in 1994, it is our struggle, but there are issues we need to sort out,” Osodeke said.

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When you check the allocation of about N1.2 billion to universities and others, you find out that the total for all the universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education come to just about N186 billion allocated out of about N320, leaving a balance of N132 billion that has not been accounted for. What are we using that N132 billion which is 41% of the total amount of money? Is it for bureaucracy or for what?

“This is what has been happening in TETFund and I think there is a need to examine what exactly is happening at TETFund. The idea of this TETFund when it was negotiated by ASUU was that this money will come and be distributed to the universities, not keeping 41% for whatever purpose.

“I think we need a redistribution of this fund to ensure that it accounts for 90% of what has been approved to go to universities, polytechnic and not kept as bureaucracy or whatever. You need to tell the public what TETFund is doing with the balance of N132 billion,” the ASUU chairman said.

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