This was contained in a press statement
issued by the union after its National Executive Council meeting.
The meeting held at its Festus Iyayi
National Secretariat, University of Abuja, on Saturday, December 18, 2021 to
review the level of government’s implementation of the FGN-ASUU Memorandum of
Action of December 23, 2020 and other related matters.
In the press statement titled, ‘Enough of
blackmail’, signed by ASUU president, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, the lecturers
regretted that the Federal Government had turned its back on the plan to set up
an inter-ministerial committee to review the draft Renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU
Agreement.
Earlier, ASUU had announced plans to embark
on a strike over the Federal Government’s failure to meet its demands.
Apart from the Earned Academic Allowances,
ASUU said its demands included the review of the NUC Act to curb the
proliferation of universities by state governments who are not funding the
existing ones; adoption of the University Transparency Accountability Solutions
(UTAS) with concurrent discontinuance of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel
Information System (IPPIS) and distortion in salary payment.
Others are the release of accumulated
promotion arrears; and the review and signing of the draft document on the Renegotiation
of 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement.
Part of the statement read, “NEC was
worried by the spirited efforts of government agents to reduce the demands of
ASUU to a regime of intermittent payment of watered-down revitalisation fund
and release of distorted and grossly devalued Earned
Academic Allowances.
“ASUU shall not relent in demanding
improvement in the welfare and conditions of service of our members. However,
we shall resist any attempt to blackmail the union and derail our patriotic
struggle for a productive university system by official propaganda founded on
tokenism and crumb-sharing.
“NEC concluded that government has failed
to satisfactorily address all the issues
raised in the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement and
subsequent MoUs and MoAs.
“However, considering the ongoing
intervention and consultation efforts, NEC resolved to review the situation at
a later date with a view to deciding on the next line of action.”