ASUU SAYS NO RESUMPTION UNTIL IMPLEMENTATION OF 2009 AGREEMENTS

By JoshLhord Mgbemele

Nigeria’s minister of education, Adamu Adamu, on Monday, gave a three-month deadline to the newly inaugurated committee saddled with the responsibility of renegotiating the 2009 agreement between the government and the university workers’ unions including the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Education and Associated Institutions (NASU) and the National Association of Academic Technologists.

Mr Adamu, who spoke during the inauguration of the renegotiation committee in Abuja, said he expected the exercise to be concluded within three months and produce a draft document.

But the leadership of ASUU has said the ongoing three-week-old nationwide strike will continue until “whatever the government wants to do with the agreement is completed and an acceptable implementation commences.”

Speaking on behalf of the union, the coordinator of the Lagos zone of ASUU, Adelaja Odukoya, said the position of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the union is that *there will be no suspension of the ongoing strike until the renegotiated agreement is implemented.*

_“NEC is very clear on its position about the conditions of service. It said until that is resolved, and the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) in the university system is achieved, the strike shall continue. And since the condition of service is contained in the agreement that has been renegotiated and now to be renegotiated again, then until the game of the government ends and the result is placed in our hands, there will be no end to this strike,”_ Mr Odukoya said.

Asked if ASUU would be willing to honour the new committee if invited for a negotiation meeting, Mr Odukoya said only the union’s NEC can answer that “but I’m sure that ASUU does not foreclose opportunities for talks.”

           

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