We Will Not Call Off Strike Till Our Demands Are Met - ASUU Makes Stand Against FG

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has vowed to continue the ongoing strike action until the Federal Government meets all its demands. 

The President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Biodun Ogunyemi, who spoke at the University of Port Harcourt, weekend, during an interactive meeting with critical stakeholders, noted that the demands of ASUU were genuine and in the interest of the nation as it concerns implementation of 2012 universities needs assessment. 

Ogunyemi bemoaned that the Nigerian universities lecturers still receive the same salary scale of 2009 in 2020, noting that the sad reality must be addressed before ASUU would suspend the strike action. 

He said: “So what we are asking of the government are not baseless things, but those things that in 2012, the government conducted during a NEEDS Assessment survey and found out that there is widespread rot and decay in the university system, we are asking that the government implement its own report of 2012.” 

“Salary issues are still there, we have not fully addressed that, it appears that some forces in government are bent on suffering our members by withholding their salaries. But we believe that once we sort out the issues of Universities Transparency and Accountability Solution, other issues will fall in place. 

“The 2009 agreement we had with government stipulates that that agreement would be reviewed every three years, but since then, we have not been able to review the salary scale and that is why we are saying that the negotiation we started with government in 2017 ought to have been completed and with the completion of that negotiation process.”