Highlights of the 2019 Memorandum of Agreement between ASUU and FG | EduCeleb
Abdussalam Amoo
8th February 2019
It is no longer news that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has called off its three month old strike. A Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) signed by representatives of the Union and those of the Federal Government signalled its suspension.
The ASUU strike which commenced on Monday, 4th November, 2018 and ended on Thursday, 7th February, 2019 was “conditionally” suspended by the university teachers’ union with the hope that agreements reached would be implemented.
Prior to this latest development, ten negotiatory meetings were held between ASUU and officials of the Nigerian government.
Prior to this latest agreement, there were previous ones between ASUU and the Nigerian government.
These are the 2009 and 2017 Memoranda of Agreement and the 2013 Memorandum of Understanding.
Some of the issues raised in those earlier ones are still yet to be entirely resolved.
Prominently, the 2009 Memorandum led to the conduct of the 2012 NEEDS Assessment in Nigerian public universities, which revealed the poor state of infrastructure and staffing in Nigerian universities.
That of 2013 had the agreement to spend 1.3 trillion naira towards the revitalisation of the universities as its main point.
Successive strike actions by the union, including the most recent one, had been to challenge government towards implementation of previous agreements.
ASUU National President, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi expressed worries that the union’s constant advocacy towards reducing the rot and decay in the universities had fell in deaf hears. He called for a change in that attitude.
“Our experience, as a trade union, shows that successive governments in Nigeria always entered into negotiated agreements only to placate those pleading the cause – be it education, health, transportation, employment or any other issue of meaningful living.”
“This proclivity of the Nigerian ruling class, irrespective of which wing of the insensitive stock they belong, must be continually be tracked, engaged and resisted by all people of goodwill.”
presents you highlights of the 2019 Memorandum of Agreement as obtained from ASUU.
(b) Mainstreaming further payments of EAA into the annual
budgets beginning from 2019 budget.
2019