Strike: ASUU gives FG two weeks ultimatum to complete agreement

Ini Billie, Uyo

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Uyo branch has threatened to embark on strike over the failure of the Federal Government to complete the 2009 renegotiated agreement it had with the union.

In a public sensitisation protest on Wednesday, at the University of Uyo town campus, the Chairperson of ASUU, Prof. Opeyemi Olajide issued a two-week ultimatum to the Federal Government to complete the 2009 renegotiated agreement.

Olajide stated that two years after ASUU returned to the classroom in obedience to the rule of law, after an eight-month strike, the Federal Government seemed adamant about completing the agreement and attending to their demands.

The chairperson explained that the union has reached out to relevant authorities to intervene and make the government do the needful to avert any disruption to academic activities without any positive result.

“In the year 2022, ASUU was on strike for eight months, public universities in Nigeria were shut down, students were sent home because the federal government of Nigeria refused to address ASUU demands as contained in renegotiated 2009 agreement which Academic Staff Unions of Nigerian Universities had with them.

“ASUU suspended the strike because our union is very civil, law-abiding and has respect for the rule of law. This is two years after, the federal government has refused to sign that agreement with our union.

“We are telling the government and the public that if in the next two weeks, nothing is done, ASUU is going to embark on, yet another strike and students will be sent home,” he stated.

While speaking, the Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Calabar zone, Dr Happiness Uduk said the Federal government still owe lecturers in public schools three and half months’ salary.

Uduk noted that public universities are not functional as expected when compared with private universities and urged the federal government to make deliberate efforts to resuscitate the public educational system.

“Enough is enough! the government is not taking care of public institutions, yet they are establishing their private universities where they are taking our resources to, where they are taking our taxpayers’ monies.

“Federal government has about two weeks to do something and if not so, ASUU will down tools, that is what we want to tell people that it is not well with us, FG has not treated us well and to say the least, we are very hungry.

“Whatever we are getting is not taking us home, we are requesting the government to pay us what they owe us, we are calling on the government to make the University system functional, we are asking the government to pay us our EAA, they should carter for universities they brought and not to bring up more universities without taking care of them,” she stated.

On his part, former Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Prof. Aniekan Brown said over the years, the union has been clamouring for “education for all.”

Brown said the workload of lecturers is not commensurate with their pay and called for a salary increment.

He lamented that despite the meagre and static salaries paid to lecturers, the rate of taxation by the FG was unbearable as a lecturer pays up to 90 per cent of his/her salary as tax.

“It’s quite sad that some lecturers have up to 48 credit loads per week, they teach on Saturdays, and yet their take-home pay will not take them home. I want to say that one can’t work on an empty stomach.

“The last time something was added to our salaries was in 2009 and as a Christian, only one Being is the same yesterday, today and forever which is Almighty God, but the Federal Government is compelling our salaries to compete with God, and as a Christian, I stand against that.

“The union is ready to ensure that the public university system gets back running, it’s left for the government to do the needful. Students attend lectures in a room that was meant for fifty persons being occupied by 200 to 250 students with no public address system.

“The lecturers will scream their hearts out to impact knowledge, yet politicians’ children are going to school abroad; you see them contributing money to already developed universities abroad and they will turn blind eyes here, we will rise as one people to compel them to start taking their responsibilities.

“Let me also note that our taxes are excruciating, a lecturer who is meant to receive Two Hundred Thousand Naira as salary will end up going home with N110,000 as N90,000 will go in as tax. You’ll see lecturers jumping from one bus to another, living uncomfortable lives. How can we impact knowledge successfully in this scenario? These people giving us this kind of tax evade tax, they subjected us to IPPIS, and they are not in IPPIS.”

Also speaking, the Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Akwa Ibom State University Chapter, Dr Inyang Udosen said the union joined the protest in solidarity with the University of Uyo and other public universities, pointing out some challenges bedevilling the State University even as he called on Akwa Ibom  State government to increase their wages to meet the current economic realities.