ASUU threatens indefinite strike at Michael Okpara varsity

• Lagos zone protests, seeks better welfare for lecturers
• OAU chapter accuses Ogunbodede of connivance with CONUA over EAA
• UI wing vows to resist FG’s plan to turn intellectuals into slaves

The Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, Abia State chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), yesterday, said it would soon embark on indefinite strike that is expected to subsist until all issues with the union are implemented.

The Chapter Chairman, Prof. Chike Ugwuene, while addressing a press conference after a meeting, lamented various unresolved grievances ASUU has had with the Federal Government, which he stated, arose from the almost their 13 years (2009) agreement.

He said that the agreement ought to have been reviewed every three years with the first in 2012, which the government also stalled.

According to him, the implication is that ASUU has been earning the same salary for the past 13 years since 2009, describing the salary as (a slave wage).

He said: “It is worrisome that the Federal Government even defaulted in the release of N30 billion Earned Academic Allowance (EAA) contained in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of 2021 by releasing only N20 billion.”

SIMILARLY, members of Lagos Zone of ASUU yesterday staged a protest within the University of Lagos (UNILAG) campus, condemning government’s insensitivity to plight of lecturers and demanded globally completive welfare package.

Co-ordinator, ASUU Lagos Zone, Dr. Adelaja Odukoya, who addressed journalists shortly after the protest, said the sensitisation was intended to bring to the public knowledge the refusal of the Federal Government to honour the agreement it entered into with the union in 2020 before the strike was suspended.

He also said that government had refused to sign and implement the renegotiated 2009 ASUU/FG agreement, which provides for a periodic review of every three years.

MEANWHILE, members of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, ASUU chapter, have accused the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Eyitope Ogunbodede, of conniving with a parallel union within the university, known as Congress of Nigerian Universities Academics (CONUA), to prevent them from benefiting from the Earned Academic Allowance (EAA).

The ASUU chapter chairperson, Oyebisi Egbedokun, in an interview with The Guardian, said the union would resist the management’s alleged illegal means of misapplying the EAA.
IN his reaction, the university’s spokesman, Mr. Biodun Olanrewaju, in an interview with The Guardian, said the management was ready to disburse the earned allowance once the two unions harmonise their templates of payment.

He said there are two academic unions in the institution, and it is only ASUU that has called its members out for a strike.

Olanrewaju said the overwhelming majority of the academic members of staff in OAU were not on strike and neither do they have the intention of doing so.

HOWEVER, The University of Ibadan (UI) ASUU chapter, yesterday, said it would resist the grand plan of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to turn intellectuals into slaves over its refusal to sign the renegotiated agreements.

Chairman of the UI ASUU chapter, Prof. Ayo Akinwole, who briefed journalists shortly after their congress, said the union had been pushed to the wall and would now fight back.

According to him, the Federal Government has employed all formal and informal tactics to delay the renegotiation of 2009 agreement for four years and the new agreement was supposed to have been effective if the government had signed it in 2021.