LIVE: ASUU press conference underway, union declares strike

The University Academic Staff Union has declared a new industrial action.
Members of the union’s National Executive Board have been holding marathon meetings since Saturday at the University of Lagos.
ASUU had sensitized and mobilized faculty and students from all universities on why the union would likely go on strike.
Inevitable warning strike
A president of one of the branches, who preferred anonymity because he is unable to speak, said the least consideration so far is a warning strike.
He explained that “ASUU is considerate but the actions of the federal government are not helpful.
“The least consideration, for now, is a warning strike. Some of our branch reps think we should go on strike, but others have advised that outside of the declared conference day, we should go on another warning strike before the full and indefinite strike.
Fund
The union had expressed grievances over the federal government’s failure to comply with some of the agreements it had reached as early as 2009. The ASUU had, on November 15, 2021, given the federal government a three-week ultimatum not to respond. to requests. .
Speakers have threatened to embark on another round of industrial action following alleged “government infidelity” in implementing the memorandum of action it signed with the union, resulting in the suspension of the 2020 strike.
After the union’s National Executive Council meeting at the University of Abuja on November 13-14, ASUU President Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke lamented that despite meeting with the Minister of Labor and Employment , Dr. Chris Ngige, October 14, 2021, on issues including public university revitalization funding, earned academic stipends, university transparency and accountability solution; promotion arrears, renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement, and inconsistencies in payment of the integrated payroll and personnel information system, none of his demands had been met.
Following the threat, the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, promised that the union would be paid.
A few weeks later, the ASUU suspended the planned strike, as 22.1 billion naira were paid to teachers at federal universities.
In the wake of renewed union agitations, the co-chairmen of the National Inter-Religious Council, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Abubakar III, and the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Dr. Samson Ayokunle, visited the president, Major – General Muhammadu Buhari (Retired) last month on the lack of implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding that the government signed with ASUU in 2009 and others.
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