ASUU issues warning of fresh national strike in 2023

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) may have issued warning of fresh national strike in Nigeria in 2023 as the year 2022 ended without their demands being addressed, berating the federal government for being insensitive to the plight of university teachers.

ASUU former President, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, in a media interaction, warned that fresh industrial action by public universities is inevitable in 2023. He chided the federal government for being insensitive to the plights of lecturers, arguing that it is against justice that people who have been made to work in arrears should not be paid in arrears.

According to Ogunyemi, “We must understand what triggers strike action. I don’t think anybody can promise you there will be no strike…”

The former ASUU President condemned the pro rata payment method of the federal government, declaring that no ASUU leader can guarantee that the university teachers will not  commence fresh strike in 2023.

Ogunyemi had declared: “I don’t think any ASUU leader can promise that because when our members’ salaries are withheld because if government is saying no work, no pay, then, at some point, our members can say no pay, no work.

“The work they said our members did not do in 2022 between February and October, many universities have made our members to do the work; they have taught courses that were left untaught, they have conducted exams that were not conducted and they are about graduating students that ordinarily supposed to lose the session because the government failed.

“In our universities today, our members are being made to teach in arrears. If the government is withholding arrears of their salaries, things may get to a head where our members will insist that their salaries be paid.”