ASUU begins 2-week warning strike | EduCeleb
EduCeleb
9th March 2020
The National leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has declared a two-week warning strike in all public universities with effect from Monday, 9th March.
This is coming a day after another university teachers’ labour group, the Congress of University Academics (CONUA) said it had no plans to go on strike.
CONUA is a breakaway group from ASUU.
President of ASUU, Biodun Ogunyemi, disclosed that the strike became necessary over the failure of government to address its several concerns.
Ogunyemi, a professor, was speaking at a press conference in Enugu, Monday, after the Union’s two-day National Executive Council meeting.
He explained that Nigerian universities were “under ceaseless siege”, a situation that needed to be addressed.
Ogunyemi explained that the essence of the industrial action was to force the Federal Government to take action on the pending issues.
He regretted that their members in federal institutions were yet to be paid their February salaries because of the issue of Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information Service (IPPIS), adding that they needed to let the Federal Government know that enough was enough.
“In our previous meetings, the Minister of Finance was solely concerned about IPPIS to the point that other issues were not addressed,” he stated.
The ASUU President, however, said that the Union would reconvene if nothing was done at the expiration of the two-week strike to determine the next line of action.
EduCeleb.com earlier reported that a group known as the Academics Without Barriers (AWB) also condemned the failure of the government to pay the February salaries of university staff. It described the development as a recipe for disaster.
CONUA, which also has membership across various universities also condemned the delay while stating that it was still reviewing the situation.