From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU) branch, has alerted Nigerians that the union would embark on an indefinite industrial action, in protest to the federal government’s failure to keep to agreement reached with them.
Issuing the alert in Umuahia on Tuesday during a press briefing organised to sensitise and mobilise members of the union for the looming strike, Prof Choke Ugwuene, chairman, ASUU, MOUAU branch, said the action had become necessary in response to federal government’s failure to honour the 2009 agreement it entered with ASUU.
He said academic staff of Nigerian Universities have have been earning the same salary for the past 13 years since 2009. “The salary we earn today has been a slave wage relative to the stupendous take home salaries being paid to the National Assembly members and other political office holders”.
The union also decried the imposition of IPPIS system on ASUU members by the federal government, noting that the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) developed by ASUU, which was tested and proved in results, would save the ASUU members from shortcomings of the IPPIS.
MOUAU ASUU Chairman regretted that “the salary of a Professor is currently less than $1000 at the current exchange rate of over N500 to the dollar”, adding that non-promotion of staff were other challenges the union members were facing as even he lamented that “these staff are still earning salaries of their previous ranks.”
The federal government, ASUU alleged, is in arrears of several billions of naira in terms of the NEEDS Assessment funds and the Earned Academic Allowance, adding that poor infrastructure had become the order of the day on campuses.
The union explained that it was the appeal by respected Nigerians and other astute bodies that made it shelve the December 2021 planned industrial actions.
It informed Nigerians to get set for the indefinite strike, as all patience had been exhausted by ASUU, even as it vowed that the strike when embarked upon would only be suspended when all their demands are met.