FG frustrating us – ASUU

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU-Nsukka Zone) on Wednesday lamented that it was being frustrated by the federal government on many fronts despite its efforts to remain law-abiding.

The Zonal Coordinator, Nsukka Zone, Raphael Amokaha, at a press conference in Makurdi said the immediate past federal government and the current government have barely paid any attention to the agitations of ASUU.

He lamented that the government continued to frustrate their efforts on contentious issues bordering on renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU/FGN Agreement, poor funding of universities, forceful usurpation of the duties of university bursary departments by the integrated personnel payment information system (IPPIS) and the non-payment of earned academic allowances (EAA) amongst others.

“ASUU-Nsukka Zone wishes to state in clear terms that if the government of the day frustrates our union into an industrial action, then the government must be held solely responsible for such a crisis. Consequently, all appeals for an amicable resolution at that time should be directed at government and not our union.

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“Why else would a government treat the cries and appeals of an intellectual union with such disdain and levity, especially coming in the wake of campaign promises that are still so fresh? ASUU in its characteristic patriotism and selflessness has been on the same issues for the last seven years,” he said.

Amokaha added that the National Executive Council of ASUU had met more than 10 times since the suspension of the strike in 2022 and that each time ASUU-NEC met, the union issued press releases or held press briefings in an effort to bring government to the negotiating table yet the government failed to budge.

“ASUU-Nsukka zone is of the firm conviction that our union has done everything sensible and possible to avert any further disruption of academic activities in our public universities and we are making this last ditch effort that public-hearted individuals and all concerned citizens will lend their voices to our efforts to seek an amicable resolution of the concerns and agitations of our union.

“All the efforts of our union to halt the decay and revitalize our universities have been frustrated by government. The efforts to better the lot of our members has equally been frustrated. University workers are one of the very few, if not the only set of workers in Nigeria that have not had a salary review in the last 15 years,” he said.