ASUU: No Agreement to Call Off strike yet

The Academic Staff Union of Universities together with the Joint Action Committee of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities have released a statement revealing there have been no agreement with the Federal Government to call off the strike.

The ASUU strike action had began on February 14, 2022 which was eventually joined by the JAC on April 14, 2022, and since then have been met by bumps along the way in the negotiation to call it off.

The industrial actions were embarked upon due to the demands for improved welfare packages, better working conditions and implementation of various labour agreements that had been agreed with the Federal Government between 2009 and 2020 which the government eventually backtracked on.

According to the reports on the national leaders of ASUU and JAC of SSANU and NASU, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke and Mr Mohammed Ibrahim, the Federal Government and the stakeholders involved in the education sector together with religious leaders, had a meeting with the four unions but no strong agreements were reached.

The reports supposedly comes in response to the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige’s statement at the weekend that seemingly confirmed there been an agreement.

But Osodeke said Ngige’s claim after the meeting denied the statements as political statements and that nothing was agreed on paper.

“We are not aware that we are calling off the strike. We met but there was nothing concrete between us and the government. Like we said before, we do not want promises, we want actions, if they show action and implement all the issues, we will go to our members, but knowing their antecedents, we know they will not do anything” He said..

“They promised us since December 2020 and it is going to a year and a half, they have not done anything. We are waiting for them. As far as we are concerned, only when they sign our agreements, accept UTAS, release EAA and revitalisation funds will we call the strikes off.” the Professor added.

“We are not talking about calling off strike now,” Professor Mohammed Ibrahim rephrased, supporting his colleagues statement that were in response to the Minister of Labour’s.