By Francis Ugwu
Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, UNN, chapter have threatened to embark on strike over the failure of the Federal Government to address their grievances.
This is even as the union said that it had employed both diplomatic and political means to no avail, insisting it’s dealing with a hypocritical government.
They issued the threat on Thursday following a peaceful march around the institution to protest the federal government’s failure to implement an agreement with the union.
Members of ASUU-UNN, who bore different placards such as “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,” among other inscriptions, urged the government to renegotiate the 2009 agreement with the Union.
The union members said they will support their national leadership’s call for nationwide indefinite strike if the federal government failed to meet the union’s demands after the 21 days ultimatum.
Comrade Oyibo Eze, Chairman of ASUU-UNN, who addressed the UNN management on behalf of the union, described the Nigerian government as hypocritical and wicked.
According to him, members of the Union had employed both diplomatic and political means to make the Presidency address their grievances, regretting that both had failed despite President Bola Tinubu’s promise to end the ASUU strike on assumption of office.
Eze alleged that the Presidency and members of the National Assembly keep appropriating common treasuries to themselves for their selfish interests while allowing the masses to wallow in abject poverty.
“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,” Eze said.
Addressing the union, Professor Johnson Urama, Deputy Vice Chancellor of UNN, lauded members of the union for using legitimate peaceful protest to register their dissatisfaction with the Federal Government.
Urama expressed optimism that the federal government would act fast to avert the looming ASUU strike which would disrupt academic activities in tertiary institutions.
DAILY POST recalls that ASUU embarked on a nationwide strike, which lasted eight months in 2022 over the federal government’s failure to implement its agreement with the union.
