ASUU President Rejects Brekete TV’s Intervention To End Strike
Drama ensued when the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) turned down Berekete Family radio’s efforts to break off the incessant strike.
Nexus News recalls that ASUU has been on strike since February and all feats to end it have proved futile.
Daily Trust reports that the host of the radio programme, Ahmad Isah, popularly known as Ordinary President, on Saturday, hosted ASUU president, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, and his team, to clarify to Nigerians the perennial problems and justify why the union is still on strike.
Furthermore, Isah said he had established a special intervention bank account domiciled in TAJ Bank to generate funds for the union, with a notion to stopping the strike.
To persuade ASUU on the idea of the intervention, Isah publicly revealed the N50 million cash donated by Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State.
However, shortly after the money was exhibited, ASUU President scowled at the development, saying they should not be attributed with such.
Ordinary President at that point, threatened to terminate the intervention and many Nigerians who phoned in during the live programme characterized ASUU as ”insensitive”.
ASUU’s demands include, funding of the revitalisation of public universities, Earned Academic Allowances, University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) and promotion arrears.
Others are the renegotiation of 2009 ASUU-FG Agreement and the inconsistency in Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System.
Speaking during an interview last month, Osedeke told NAN that none of these demands had been met by the Federal Government.
“All the issues that made us to go on strike are still there; that is the revitalisation fund, that is putting more money into universities and revitalising the infrastructure in the universities.
“There is also the issue of our mode of payments in the universities. There is no university in the world where lecturers are paid salaries from the Accountant General’s Office.
“We have challenged them to provide one, if universities are a universal body, why are they doing things differently. We talk of negotiation of the agreement, the proliferation of universities, among others, so there are lots of issues that they have not resolved,” he added.
According to the the ASUU president, the government had also rejected UTAS which he said had been assessed and passed with a scored 99.3 per cent.
Osedeke further called on the Federal Government to do the needful in order for students to return to school.
About Author
