Education
ASUU expresses disappointment over Tinubu’s failure to fulfil promises
University workers under the umbrella of Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, have expressed disappointment over President Bola Tinubu’s failure to fulfil promises to release their withheld eight months’ salaries resulting from the 2022 industrial action, the six-month N35,000 wage award and upward salary review.
The union is now saying it is tired of the federal government’s unfaithfulness to promises made to the union, lamenting that it has yet to implement all its agreements with the organised labour, particularly ASUU, since the administration came in.
Recall that Tinubu at the 33rd convocation ceremony of the Federal University of Technology promised that his administration would tackle all challenges confronting the education sector and reposition it.
ASUU members had embarked on an eight-month industrial action, which began on February 14, 2022, and lasted until October 17, 2022, but the federal government insisted on implementing the ‘No Work, No Pay’ policy for the period the university workers were away from their duty posts.
However, nearly sixteen months after the academic staff members returned to work, they have continued to lament the unyielding response of the government to their withheld salaries.
ASUU said it was regrettable that despite the gentlemen’s agreement between the union and the federal government, no dime had been paid to its members, creating unnecessary hardship for their families.
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Apart from the withheld eight months’ salaries, the university workers said they were yet to be removed from the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, IPPIS, as directed by the President.
Before now, ASUU had called on the government to abolish IPPIS and embrace its own creation, the University Transparency Account System, UTAS.
The union argued that UTAS would better take care of the weaknesses inherent in IPPIS, telling the government to consider the peculiarities of universities.
Similarly, in October 2023, the administration ordered the immediate implementation of a new wage award of N35,000 to each federal civil servant as a palliative to cushion the harsh effects of the removal of fuel subsidy.
Speaking recently in an interactive session with journalists during the week at the Gidan Kwano Main Campus of the Federal University of Technology (FUT) Minna, the Niger State capital, the National President of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, declared that the government has not implemented all the agreements it reached with the organized labour, particularly between ASUU, since the administration of President Bola Tinubu began.
Osodeke stated that members of the National Executive Council, NEC, were currently in a nationwide consultation with the branches of the union to decide on the next line of action after the NEC meeting later this month.
The ASUU leader stated that the association would present all the suggestions gathered during its nationwide consultations at the NEC meeting before taking the necessary action to press home their demands.