The Academic Staff Union of Universities may join the Nigeria Labour Congress in the ongoing industrial action.
The Owerri Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Prof Uzo Onyebinama,
disclosed this at a press conference at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University,
Awka, Anambra State.
While debunking that the strikes were not sponsored by the
opposition parties, Onyebinama said the reason of ASUU strike was as a
result of the Federal Government’s inability to fulfill the 2009
agreement with the union on the welfare of its members.
His statement read in part, “You will recall that the 2009 FGN
—ASUU Agreement made provision for the re-negotiation of the Agreement
every three (3) years.
“Consequently, the first renegotiation of the Agreement should
have been in 2012. This was not to be. The first renegotiation of the
Agreement commenced in March 2017.
“As we speak now, the renegotiation exercise has broken down
since May 2018 (after 14months), due largely to the deliberate tactics
adopted by the leader of the Government Team, Dr. Wale Babalakin, to
scuttle the renegotiation, by jettisoning the principle of collective
bargaining and the gains of previous agreements, memorandum of
understanding and memorandum of action.
“In addition, the government team insisted that education ought
to be funded from ‘diverse sources’ and consequently proposed the
establishment of an Education Bank and a Students’ Loan Scheme.”
The Union urged the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency,
provide a platform for the leadership of ASUU to engage State Governors
on issues of proliferation of universities, underfunding of state
universities, undue interference in the administration of state
universities, and the non-implementation of various components of the
2009 Agreement in many state universities.
The union said it would be left with no other choice than to embark
on an industrial action if the contentious issues were not resolved.