Newsone has compiled the latest ASUU news on the current strike embarked by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), a Nigerian union of university academic staff.
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Below is the latest Asuu strike update, asuu latest news on resumption and ASUU strike news today, Friday, 12 August 2022, compiled by Newsone Nigeria.
Our members leaving Nigeria since strike – ASUU President
PRESIDENT of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Professor Victor Osodeke, yesterday, disclosed that many lecturers in Nigerian Universities have left the country to pursue their careers abroad as the Federal Government fails to resolve the lingering crisis in the education sector.
Fielding questions from journalists at the Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Osodeke said: “We don’t have a certain statistic but a large number of our members have moved out of the country not because they hate this country but because of the way they are being treated. There’s no country in the world where their academics will go on strike and you think the best weapon is to seize their salary.
“When we were on the strike, lecturers in the United Kingdom went on strike, it didn’t take two days for them to resolve it, the Ghanaians went on strike and they resolved it. But here, they felt nonchalant and you know why? Because they do not commit, their children are not here, they are not Nigerians, their children are abroad, and their families are abroad.
“We see the children of President, children of Senators, children of Governors having their convocation and you see other Governors coming to rejoice with them, so you have leaders who do not have any feelings for the children of the poor.
“ASUU will go as far till they (FG) are ready to answer. We also appeal to Nigerians, the beauty of this, is that their lives are in their hands. In the next five to six months from now, there will be an election, they should hold their PVC, and all those who have subjected them to this crisis should be voted out. It is their right they voted them in, they can’t be at home while their children will be enjoying education outside the country. This is their right they should use their PVC.”
FG hasn’t informed ASUU of cash crunch – Osodeke
Striking Academic Staff Union of Universities has said the government has not at any time indicated that it does not have money to fund the union’s demands and university education.
The union was reacting to recent comments by the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo; and Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi, who said it was unreasonable for the Federal Government to borrow over N1 trillion to meet ASUU’s demands.
The PUNCH reports that ASUU has been on strike since February 14, 2022, after submitting its demands, which were being renegotiated by the Prof. Nimi Briggs committee set up by the Federal Government.
The strike enters its 180th day on Friday (today).
ASUU’s National President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, in an interview with The PUNCH, described those saying the government had no money as interlopers who had no business in the affairs of ASUU and the government.
Osodeke said, “Do you believe the FG has no money? Is Umahi the FG? Has the Minister of Education said so? Has the Minister of Finance said so? If the person directed to resolve a matter has not said so when interlopers are saying things, who will you believe?
“When did Umahi become the spokesperson for the FG? They can borrow money for Trader Moni, they can borrow money to feed schoolchildren in schools, they can borrow to buy vehicles for Niger Republic, but they cannot borrow to fund education. We are tired too. If they want to close down all the universities formally, they should.”
Resolve issues with ASUU now, vice-chancellors beg FG
The Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities has said the government’s insistence that it does not have money to fund Nigerian universities is disheartening.
The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr Festus Keyamo, in an interview, said the government had no money to meet ASUU’s demands and would not go into borrowing.
Speaking in an interview with The PUNCH, on Tuesday, the chairman of CVCNU, Prof. Samuel Edoumiekumo, explained that the demands of ASUU were not for the union but for the rehabilitation of the universities, adding that what the government meant by that statement was that it did not have money to fund its own universities.
He said, “This issue of saying we don’t have money to put into the university system shouldn’t be. It is like the NEEDS assessment fund; it was not given to ASUU, it was given to the universities.
“When they say we don’t have funds, what they are saying is that ‘these universities are our own but we don’t have money to give. We don’t have money to pay for overhead to run the universities.’ I listened to Keyamo also. He is not even at the centre of the whole thing.”
Edoumiekumo added that he and other VCs in the country are not happy that the universities were closed down.
He, therefore, called for a speedy resolution.
“I will not take whatever Keyamo says as the position of the government. We are not happy that our universities are closed down. I plead with both parties to amicably resolve the issues on the ground. I know the government and ASUU, especially the Ministry of Education, are working with national leaders of ASUU, but they have not finalised the reason they have not come out publicly,” he added.
NANS to engage FG over ASUU demands
The National Association of Nigerian Students is set to engage the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, and Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, over alleged reports that the Federal Government has no money to meet the demands of the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities.
The student body has, however, dissociated itself from a report calling for the sack of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, by some “faceless students.”
The association’s Vice President (Special Duties), Odiahi Ikhine, who addressed a news conference on Monday in Abuja, said the students were unhappy with comments credited to the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, that the government had no money to meet the demands of ASUU.
Keyamo was said to have asked parents to beg ASUU to call off the strike because the government could not afford the 1.2 trillion demands of the union as proposed by the Emeritus Professor Nimi Briggs Committee on renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement.
Ikhine said the leadership of the Association would meet with Adamu and Ngige to know exactly what was happening after President Buhari gave a directive that the strike be resolved within two weeks and government officials were coming out to say that there was no money to meet the demands of the union.
He vowed that the students would not relent in their efforts to ensure the right thing is done.
“On the issue of ASUU strike, we as an organisation have been doing our best. We have been able to pressure the government and just recently the NLC called for a protest and we joined them. As it is, we are not relenting.
ASUU strike: We’re not happy with Keyamo over no-money comment —NANS
THE National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS,has berated the Minister of Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo,over his statement not only that the federal government would not borrow money to meet the demands of the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, but also tasking parents to beg the university lecturers to return to classrooms.
NANS also hinted that it would engage the federal government through the Minister of Labour and Employment,Chris Ngige and his Education counterpart,Adamu Adamu,with a view to knowing the position of government following Keyamu’s statement
NANS Vice President (Special Duties), Comrade Odiahi Thomas Ikhine, who addressed news conference on Monday in Abuja, said students across the country were disappointed over the comments credited to Keyamo, that goverment has no money to meet the demands of ASUU.
ASUU strike: Delaying decisions means postponing evil day – JAMB Registrar
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede has appealed to striking lecturers to resume.
Oloyede made the appeal on Saturday while monitoring the 2022 mop-up Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
More than 42,000 candidates participated in the exercise conducted in 45 centres in five states.
The examination was organized for candidates who could not participate in the nationwide test which was held in May.
Oloyede appealed to parties to reach a truce to ensure affected students return to the classrooms.
The registrar said even if ASUU called off the strike, it would not prevent it from happening again.
“I believe that what we should do is to look at the system and take some hard decisions.
“If we do not take such decisions, then we may be postponing the evil day”, NAN quoted him saying.
Strike: We can no longer enter into unimplementable agreements — FG
THE Federal Government has said it would no longer succumb to any form of blackmail and intimidation that will make it enter into agreement with unions that will be difficult to implement.
The government’s position is coming on the heels of the face-off between it and the four university based unions that culminated in a strike which has lingered for about six months.
Beg ASUU, we can’t borrow, Keyamo tells parents
The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, SAN, has called on Nigerian parents and guardians whose parents are affected by the ongoing shutdown of academic activities in government-owned universities to appeal to the Academic Staff Union of Universities to call off the lingering strike.
ASUU had declared a nationwide strike on Monday, February 14, 2022.
The strike, according to the union, was as a result of the failure of the government to meet some demands such as the release of the revitalisation funds for universities, release of earned allowances for university lecturers, deployment of the University Transparency Accountability System for the payment of salaries and allowances of university lecturers, renegotiation of the ASUU-Federal Government 2009 agreement among others.
Since the strike began, stakeholders had called on the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to find a lasting solution to the strike and increase funding of tertiary institutions.
The President, in a meeting with the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, alongside his other colleague, gave a directive to the members of his cabinet involved to ensure a speedy solution to the strike.
However, our correspondent reports that close to three weeks after the directive by the President, the union was yet to suspend its strike.
Featuring on a programme on Channels Television, Keyamo noted that the government had done its best and appealed to parents to “beg” ASUU.
“The moment they went on strike, we intervened, what is the manner again beyond that ? Even before the strike began, we called them to a meeting, what manner is more than that? It’s not like we left them to go on strike first and we were sleeping, as the talk started, they still went on strike.
“You can not allow one sector of the economy to hold you down and then blackmail you to go and borrow N1.2 trillion and our total income is around N6.1 trillion and we have roads to build, health centres and other sectors to take care of.
“I will tell the parents, everybody to go and beg ASUU like the President said the other time, those who know them should appeal to their sense of patriotism. The nation can not ground to a halt because we want to take care of the demands of ASUU”.
ASUU Strike has been extended again.
Newsone reports that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has extended the prolonged industrial action embarked upon over five months ago by another four weeks.
This online news platform recalls ASUU Strike commenced on February 14, 2022, following the inability of the Federal Government to implement a Memorandum of Action (MoA) entered by the two parties in 2020.
Newsone Nigeria reports that ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke in a statement on Monday, August 1, 2022, said the decision to further extend the strike was to enable the FG satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues raised.
The development was a sequel to an emergency meeting of the National Executive Council of the union held at the Comrade Festus Iyayi National Secretariat, the University of Abuja in Abuja, the nation’s capital on Sunday, July 31, 2022.
The statement reads in part, “Following extensive deliberations and taking cognizance of Government’s past failures to abide by its own timelines in addressing issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA), NEC resolved that the strike be rolled over for four weeks to give Government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.
“The roll-over strike action is with effect from 12.01 am on Monday, 1st August 2022”.
That’s the ASUU strike update today, check back for more updates. Also, get more trending Naija news on Newsone Nigeria.
