National president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, has announced suspension of the planned strike following the intervention of concerned stakeholders.
Osodeke said in a statement yesterday that the lecturers’ association shelved the action to give room for more dialogue with the federal government before deciding on further action to take.
The national president expressed concern over government’s alleged resort to blackmail against the union and its refusal to honour the memorandum of action signed by both parties before suspending its nine-month strike last December.
“The union is worried by the spirited efforts of government agents to reduce the demands of ASUU to a regime of intermittent payment of watered-down revitalisation fund and release of distorted and grossly devalued Earned Academic Allowances (EAA),” he said.
Osodeke accused the federal government of reneging on its promise to set up an inter-ministerial committee to review the draft renegotiated 2009 FGN-ASUU agreement.
He also accused the minister of state for education, Mr. Chukuwuemeka Nwajiuba, for allegedly failing to revive the renegotiation process as promised.
On its proposed payment system, University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), Osodeke wondered why the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) was yet to give its feedback.
However, he said he was pleased by the evaluation report by NITDA, which, according to him, endorsed UTAS.
He therefore called on the National Universities Commission (NUC) to promptly respond to issues that concern them in the NITDA’s report to pave way for speedy migration to the payment platform.