Nigeria Government fails to come up with any new offer to the academia after over 6 months of students stay at home
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will continue strike actions as Federal Government did not come with any new offer.
Report said the renegotiation committee lead by Professor Nimi Briggs only pleaded with the lecturers to suspend the ongoing strike with promises that their concerns will be included in the 2023 budget on Tuesday in Abuja.
ASUU has been on strike since February 14 over the government’s failure to implement its demands on salaries and allowances of lecturers, improved funding for universities as well as the adoption of UTAS against the federal government’s preferred payment platform — Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
However, ASUU president Emmanuel Osodeke on Monday night said the union has reached an agreement with the government to adopt the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) as the payment platform of lecturers and suspend the strike.
“We have not had any serious communication though they have invited us for a meeting on one issue, tomorrow (Tuesday), which is the issue of renegotiation,” Osodeke told Channels TV.
“You know that there are seven issues why we are on strike. They are inviting for discussion on issue of renegotiation, tomorrow, which is renegotiation of the 2009 agreement.
The strike has shut federal government-owned universities for 183 days with President Muhammadu Buhari urging the ASUU to allow students return to class.
“issues of IPPIS and UTAS has been put to rest because the test has been done and it has been agreed with the chief of staff, UTAS will be implemented to cover the university.”
“If this government is serious, this strike will not last more than two weeks. If you recall we were going to suppose to go on strike in November, we didn’t start it because NIREC came in and intervened. We conceded to them.”
IT News Nigeria gathered that some of the lecturers’ demands include funding for the revitalisation of public universities, payment of earned academic allowances, and adoption of the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) as a preferred payment option, instead of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and payment of promotion arrears.
