ASUU Issues 2-Month Ultimatum to FG Over Unpaid Salaries, Demands

ASUU gives FG a two-month deadline to fulfill additional requests and pay delayed salaries.

The Federal Government has been given a two-month ultimatum by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to fulfill all of its recommendations.

ASUU issued a warning, stating that it will use all legal means, including the principle of “no pay, no work,” to enforce compliance if the demands are not fulfilled by the deadline.

Zonal Coordinator Adelaja Odukoya stressed Nigeria's hazardous situation, saying the nation is on the verge of collapse, during a speech on Tuesday, May 21, at a conference hosted by the Lagos State Zone of ASUU at the University of Lagos.

ASUU has a history of using protracted strikes as a tool to put pressure on the federal government to accede to its many demands for improving the university system and the welfare of its faculty.

The administration has often assured us, yet these promises are frequently broken. Renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, release of withheld salaries and arrears of Earned Academic Allowances, inadequate funding of universities, the proliferation of universities, and the troublesome Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, or IPPIS, are a few of the unfulfilled commitments.

He declared, “At our last NEC meeting on May 11 to 12, held at the Obafemi Awolowo University, we decided to give the government just two months to implement all our demands or else our union will raise powerfully in defence of the Nigerian public universities. Nigeria is on the verge of collapse, and all of its parts are being pulled along with it by the type of leaders who control its political and administrative spheres.

“It should not go without saying that our great and patriotic union will not give up even a single square inch of territory to grasshoppers that want to destroy our country, whose sole objective is the cavalier accumulation of illegal wealth.”

According to Odukoya, ASUU would not remain silent while politicians undercut public universities in order to further their own agendas at the expense of Nigeria's advancement.

He declared that ASUU, a patriotic union, would tenaciously defend the rights of the oppressed and heavily taxed Nigerian people if the status quo continues.

Additionally, Odukoya revealed that the purposeful underfunding of Nigerian colleges is meant to maintain the nation's backwardness.

He stated, “As you can see, the university's inadequate funding is intentional. It is in tandem with the neoliberal agenda of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund which is to keep us perpetually backward and underdeveloped.

“No surprise our universities are in a programmatic way being transformed into superfluous entrepreneurial establishments that process bread and pure water, rather than to citadels of innovation and creativity of advanced technology.

“The intention is to make the country a consumer of technology rather than a veritable player in the knowledge and technology industry. ASUU rejects this in all entirety and calls on all well-meaning Nigerians to join in our crusade to force better funding for education and universities as an agent of liberation for our people.”

Odukoya explained that the government has chosen not to sign the renegotiated 2009 Agreement or ask for a review if there are issues with particular sections, therefore it remains in its original draft form.

“The Agreement, as you might be aware from past documents, covers not just conditions of service (salaries and allowances), but funding of universities, university Autonomy and Academic Freedom, and other matters. The refusal of the government to conclude the renegotiation indicates a lack of understanding of the profound nature of the document such that the government is now pretending that giving a salary award has now rested the matter.

“The International Labour Organisation's (ILO) Convention No. 98 addresses the principle of collective bargaining within which our union continues to engage the government on this topic. The ILO's C095 Protection of Wages Convention, 1949 provides for 'mutual agreement in alteration of wages payable in virtue of a written or unwritten contract of employment by an employer to an employed person' (Article 1) The provisions of ILO's C095 (Article 2 1 & 2) assert.”

Also speaking, former chairman, ASUU- UNILAG, Dele Ashiru, added, “In two months, if all of these outstanding issues are not implemented, the NEC will convey to take further actions. We are here to draw government attention and alert the Nigerian people to the lacklustre nature of government response to the unresolved issues between the government and our union.

“We put the people of Nigeria on notice that should there be a crisis in the university system, Bola Tinubu should be squarely held responsible. One year is ample time to begin the process of rectifying the shortcomings of the APC- led Buhari administration.”