…FG has met all ASUU demands, says Minister
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) extended its ongoing strike by eight weeks as the Federal Government has failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action within the four-week warning strike.
President of the union, Emmanuel Osodeke, made this known in a statement on Monday.
Osodeke noted that the National Executive Council during their meeting on Sunday concluded that they would give the FG eight weeks to address all the issues “in concrete terms” so that students would resume.
The statement partly read, “NEC acknowledged the intervention efforts, in various ways, by patriots and friends of genuine national development (students, parents, journalists, trade union leaders, civil society activists etc.) to expeditiously resolve the crisis which•Govemment’s disposition had allowed to fester.
“However, ASUU, as a union of intellectuals, has historic obligations to make governments honour agreements.
“NEC, having taken reports on the engagements of the Trustees and Principal Officers with the Government, concluded that Government had failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action within the four-week roll-over strike period and resolved that the strike be rolled over for another eight weeks to give Government more time to address all the issues in concrete terms so that our students will resume as soon as possible.
“The roll-over strike shall commence by 12.Olam on Monday, 14th March 2022.”
Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, while reacting to the extended strike, said the Federal Government had met all of ASUU’s demands.
In an interview with journalists at the end of the commemoration of the 2022 Commonwealth Celebration in Abuja on Monday, Nwajiuba said all earned allowances as well as revitalisation funds had been released.
“ASUU announced and we met and everything that they have demanded, we have done all of them including the earned allowances and the revitalisation fund; they choose to extend it for two months may be,” he said.
