The federal government has criticized the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ (ASUU’s) decision to continue its strike action, alleging that it had met 80% of the union’s requests.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) announced earlier on Monday that it will extend its ongoing strike of more than six months.
Following a meeting of its National Executive Council (NEC) at the University of Abuja Secretariat, ASUU took the aforementioned move.
The federal government noted that the union’s strike extension was unrealistic and said it had met 80 percent of the union’s requests.
After Bem Goong, Director of Press and Public Relations for the Federal Ministry of Education, said, “If you bring some requests and about 80% have been attended to, there is no need to drag the strike anymore,” the strike was called off.
As he put it, “it is ridiculous for the strike to be lingering given the administration has worked towards meeting most of the objectives.”
According to Goong, the federal government took every possible step to end the strike, and he elaborated on the next steps by saying, “As regards the next steps, the government has already inaugurated a committee to harmonize the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, and the University Peculiar Personnel and Payroll System, U3PS.”
That way, he said, “all the technical characteristics may be harmonized into a single payment platform,” guaranteeing that the government would use that platform exclusively.
You may remember that Malam Adamu Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education, said last week that the government had met most of ASUU’s demands.
Adamu claims that the release of N50 billion was one among the demands that was met, as it will be used to pay earned allowances to university faculty and staff.