ASUU Sensitises Parents, Students on Looming Strike over Withheld Salaries, Others

James Sowole in Abeokuta

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU) Ago Iwoye branch, yesterday, staged a rally to sensitise parents, students and other stakeholders in the university system.

Members of the union who held the rally in the university campus, sang aluta songs carrying placards of many inscriptions about the looming nationwide strike.

The ASUU – OOU said the rally was in compliance with the directive of the national body of the union.

According to ASUU, the strike ought to have since commenced but the union elected to postpone till a date in July, to enable the lecturers prepare the minds of stakeholders.

The rally led by the OOU branch Acting Chairman, Dr. Olooto Wasiu, took the lecturers round the university campus, where they briefed students of the imminent action, urging them to understand that the planned industrial action was meant to save the nation’s public universities.

The Union also stopped over at the garage and bus terminals, where they addressed parents and motorists about the looming industrial action.

Some of inscriptions on the placards read: “Nigerians, ASUU Has Sacrificed More Than Enough Survival of University System; FG Stop Playing Politics with Our Educational System,” Education is a Right and Not a Privilege; Our Negotiation Should Be Completed and Implemented” among others.

Addressing reporters at the ASUU Secretariat inside the OOU campus after the rally, Wasiu identified some of the issues that necessitate the impending strike.

The issues he listed included the federal government’s disbanding of some Governing Council of federal universities when their tenure had not yet ended and its refusal to recall them; non-payment of three and half months salaries under the guise of ‘no work, no pay policy,’ as punishment for previous strike and quest for university autonomy.

He also identified non- implementation of the 2009 ASUU/FG agreement in full, rejection of the UTAS payment system developed by the ASUU and the continued use of the IPPIS to pay members as other unresolved issues necessitating the impending nationwide strike by ASUU.

According to him, the strike was inevitable hence the advance notice to Nigerians, especially stakeholders, so that nobody would be taken unaware.

He said, “The basis of the rally we had today is to sensitise our students and stakeholders in the university about the impending action. The action may be determined by circumstances. It might be strike or something else.

“The essence is to keep them aware that very soon the action will be exposed but it will be as directed by the national body. I believe that they have been sensitised and given their consent. “So, if they hear that ASUU is on strike, they would have already been aware of it and the purpose.

“There are many things the government has not done. Our colleagues were being owed eight months salary because of the previous strike. They adopted the policy of ‘no work no pay.’ They have paid four and half months. It still remains three and half months unpaid. We are saying the remaining months owed our members should be paid.

“The claim was that they didn’t teach but they forgot that the job of lecturers is not only limited to teaching. There are areas of community service, there are areas of research. “Let them go ask the students if what they were supposed to be taught when ASUU was on strike was not eventually taught when the strike was called off?

“Immediately after the strike called off and school resumed, we made sure that all what the students were supposed to learn were treated, they were examined, scripts were marked and results were released.

“What else did they want us to do that we did not do? So, there is no basis for withholding the three and half months salary of our members.”