ASSU STRIKE: Asuu Declaires General Strike

ASUU has declared a total strike. The Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) will embark on a total and unconditional strike set to begin today 4th December, 2011. The ASUU strike

would be enforced from midnight todayThe National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday directed its branches and members nationwide to embark on a total, comprehensive and indefinite strike, following the refusal of the federal government to implement agreement reached more than two years ago.

ASUU president Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie told journalists in Port Harcourt that there is a clear indication that the government of Nigeria is insincere and unwilling to fulfil its own side of the agreement that was freely entered and freely signed by both parties.

Prof. Awuzie state: “NEC, having noted that the federal government neglected, ignored, failed and refused to implement the core components of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement after more than two years of its signing, having squandered the two months it requested without achieving any progress in the implementation of the Agreement, having sacked the Implementation Monitoring Committee that serves as the forum for dialogue with ASUU on this dispute, is convinced that government is terribly insincere and  is manifestly  unwilling to genuinely implement  the Agreement freely entered with ASUU. The government has abandoned the main tenet of industrial democracy - that all agreements freely entered into must be honoured.

“NEC of ASUU therefore resolved, painfully, to direct all members of ASUU in all branches nationwide to proceed on a total, comprehensive and indefinite strike beginning from the midnight of Sunday, 4th December 2011. For the avoidance of doubt, a total, comprehensive and indefinite strike means: no teaching, no examination, no grading of script, no project supervisions, no inaugural lectures, no appointment and promotion meetings, no statutory meetings (Council, Senate, Boards, etc) or other meetings directed by government or their agents.”

The ASUU president lamented that ASUU having granted the federal government a grace of two months after a one week warning strike that ended in September with a Memorandum of Understanding reached between the minister of education and that of labour and productivity, on strategies and timelines to facilitate the implementation of the agreement, the government rather sacked the implementation and monitoring committee.

“In the last two months (which government officially requested) ASUU made strenuous efforts to get the expanded Implementation Committee to meet and do its work. In fact, government, instead of encouraging the expanded committee, actually sabotaged it by unilaterally sacking the chairman and a couple of other members, in breach of the University Miscellaneous Amendment Act (2003),” he said.

Part of the agreement reached between ASUU and government was that the sum of N 1.5 trillion would be released within the next three years by all federal universities jointly for both recurrent and capital grants.

Awusie described the ongoing institutional accreditation as part of a conspiracy by the Jonathan administration through its agency, the National Universities Commission (NUC), as a deceptive measure to give a feigned position that all is well in the university system.

He observed that, in the last decade, the federal budgetary allocation to education was at an average of 8% compared to other countries like Ghana and South Africa with 30% of their total budget devoted to education consistently for the last few decades.

Commenting on the state of the nation, ASUU alleged that the Jonathan-led administration is nothing but a group of ruling class bent on mortgaging the future of the country to the western imperial powers, adding that ASUU will strongly resist the planned fuel subsidy removal.