‘We’ve Been Pushed To The Wall’ – ASUU Hints When Lecturers Will Start Strike

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Tuesday accused the Federal Government of defaulting on its promise to implement the Memorandum of Action (MOA) signed by the two parties last December.

The Lagos Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Dr Adelaja Odukoya who was joined by other union leaders from various universities in the zone at a press conference in Lagos, disclosed that academics in the nation’s public universities can embark on strike any moment from now.

The union leaders lamented that the government is trying to cripple the union by withholding check-off dues of members for over a year. They held that these dues ran into millions of naira and that the act was perpetrated by the government through the controversial Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System (IPPIS).

According to Odukoya, “We called off our strike last December and signed an MOA and out of the nine items on the list for implementation, only two have been done. The first is the setting up of Visitation. Panels to universities.

“Can you imagine that we as a union are the ones asking the government to set up panels to know what is happening in their universities? Setting up of panels ought to be done every five years.

“The second item is the promotion arrears and that has not been done completely. A number of our members in some universities are yet to benefit. Can one say scoring two out of nine marks is enviable?

“The Revitalisation Fund that they said had been deposited at the Central Bank of Nigeria since January this year is still crawling and has not got to the accounts of beneficiaries,” he added.