The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has threatened to embark on another round of industrial action following “the failure of the Federal Government to implement an agreement signed with the union”.
ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, who made this known in an interview on Sunday, said the union is giving the government till the end of August (Tuesday) to reach out or it will activate the procedure of embarking on strike.
Recall that in March 2020, the union embarked on a strike following its disagreement with the Federal Government over the funding of the universities and the ineffectiveness and discrepancies around the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System and others.
ASUU had developed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to replace IPPIS and had several meetings with the Ministries of Finance, Education, Labor and Employment, and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation before it was approved but yet to be implemented.
On December 24, 2020, the strike was suspended following agreement reached between the FG and ASUU, aimed at resolving some of the demands of ASUU.
After a meeting with the FG on August 2, 2021, Osodeke said the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) insisted that UTAS must be re-presented to the end users.
Speaking on Sunday, Osodeke said that the FG had stopped reaching out to ASUU and had failed to implement the agreement reached.
He said, “The government has refused to reach out to us. Government officials have stopped. In fact, they don’t take our calls again. Nigerians should tell the government to do what they agreed to do.
“We signed an agreement and even in May, we reached a final agreement; this is August and nothing has been implemented. Does it make any sense? We are giving them till the end of August and after that, we start the procedures.”
