Your condition to end strike is unreasonable, FG blasts ASUU

The Academic Staff Union of the Universities (ASUU) has come under attack as the federal government described the condition set by the body before it can end its strike as “unreasonable.” It would be recalled that ASUU said it would end the strike action after its home-grown University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) has passed the federal government’s integrity test.

Speaking in an interview, the association’s national leader and president, Professor Bidoun Ogunyemi, gave the assurance with questions popping up on when the lecturers will resume back to classrooms. This is when we’ll end strike – ASUU raises students’ hope after agreement with FG ASUU was expected to call off its strike and mandate lecturers to resume back to lecture rooms on Wednesday, October 21, after striking a unilateral agreement with the representatives of the federal government.

But Ogunyemi said UTAS, which is a payment system developed by ASUU in place of the controversial Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), is still going through an integrity test handled by NITDA.

Reacting to the ASUU’s stance, spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Ben Goong, said ASUU’s demand is ridiculous because varsity lecturers cannot determine how they should be paid by their employers which is the federal government.

Meanwhile, ASUU has raised an alarm over what the body termed as a deliberate attempt to strangulate public education in Nigeria. Speaking during a Town and Gown meeting at the African Hall in the University of Ilorin, Kwara state, ASUU president Ogunyemi said the lecturers’ body is being neglected by the federal government because “there were plans to make education inaccessible to the poor.”