The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) chapter of the country’s premier indigenous varsity, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), has threatened to embark on strike over government’s failure to tackle teachers’ headaches.
It issued the threat on Thursday, June 27, after members undertook a peaceful march around the institution.
UNN lecturers said their march was to protest the Federal Government’s failure to implement an agreement with their union.
They urged the government to renegotiate the 2009 agreement with ASUU.
Undertaking the peaceful protest, the ASUU-UNN members bore placards that read:
“Government, stop forcing ASUU to embark on strike;
“Government, honour agreements with ASUU;
“Government, don’t kill university education in Nigeria;
“Nigeria lecturers are the least paid in the globe.”
According to the lecturers, their national leadership had their full support to declare an indefinite nationwide strike should government fail to meet the union’s demands after the 21 days ultimatum.
Addressing the gathering, Comrade Oyibo Eze, Chairman of ASUU-UNN, described the Nigerian government as hypocritical and wicked.
Eze said that while the Executive and the National Assembly appropriated huge sums to themselves, they allowed the masses to wallow in abject poverty.
He said: “The Union has tried all possible diplomatic and political means to resolve this issue. But after weighing all the other options, the only language the Nigerian government understands is strike.
“Since 2009 ASUU entered an agreement with the Federal Government, every effort to renegotiate the agreement with the Federal Government has proved abortive.
“President Bola Tinubu made it clear during his campaign that he would end the ASUU strike by fulfilling all the demands of the Union, but immediately he assumed office, he never made efforts to match his words with action.
“Immediately he assumed office, we articulated our grievances and sent them to him, we have done that up to three times but we have not received any response from the government.
“Since he assumed office one year ago, our Union has employed both political and diplomatic means to make the Federal Government address our grievances, but none yielded any result.
“We are dealing with a hypocritical government, which takes money in millions but is not able to give N100,000 to civil servants.”
Professor Johnson Urama, Deputy Vice Chancellor of UNN, lauded members of the union for using a legitimate and peaceful protest to register their dissatisfaction with the Federal Government.
He expressed confidence that the Federal Government would act fast to avert the looming ASUU strike that could disrupt academic activities in tertiary institutions.
