The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has extended its sixmonth- old strike indefinitely, following the Federal Government’s refusal to meet public university lecturer’s demands.

ASUU announced this on its official Twitter handle after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting at the University of Abuja yesterday. The union’s demands include improved welfare and the revitalisation of public universities, ending the proliferation of universities by state governments’ and academic autonomy.

But ASUU has found itself locked in a fierce battle with the Federal Government for failing to honour its 2009 agreement with them. A series of meetings between the government and ASUU to find a solution to the impasse have ended in a deadlock.


Although the union has yet to make a statement on the meeting, which began on Sunday, sources said the lecturers are insistent on the government yielding to their demands before calling off the strike. But the Federal Government insisted it had addressed 80 per cent of the union’s demands, saying extending the strike is unreasonable.

Spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Mr Ben Goong, told reporters yesterday: “The government has already inaugurated a committee to harmonise the IPPIS, UTAS, and UP3, a salary payment platform introduced by another union within the university system.

“This will ensure that the government will pay with only one payment platform that will harmonise all the technical peculiarities. “If you bring some demands and almost 80 per cent have been attended to, there is no need to drag the strike anymore. “It is unreasonable for the strike to be lingering, seeing that the government has worked towards meeting most of the demands.’’


Meanwhile, a source, who is a frontline member of the Union in one of the federal universities located in North Central Nigeria, said the ASUU Chairman is under pressure to call a truce and return to classrooms. The source noted that the union is refusing to yield because of its past experience with a government which has reneged past promises.

“Apart from pending issues of allowance and the back-and-forth about whether the government would pay the backlog of arrears of salaries owed our members, there are commitments that are to the benefits of Nigerian universities that we are not getting. “Ironically, these things are not to the benefit of any individual lecturer, but that of the universities,” he said.

Ahead of Sunday’s crucial meeting, branch congresses were held on Tuesday and Wednesday across the universities and the resolutions reached were discussed at the NEC meeting.

Already, some state universities such as Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso and Delta State University, pulled out of the ongoing strike, while the Lagos State and Osun State universities along with some other state tertiary institutions are also not on strike.


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