Another round of industrial action that is brewing in the nation’s universities is undesirable and should be averted. As an antidote, the Federal Government should quickly bring together the Academic Staff Union of Universities and other stakeholders to resolve all outstanding issues in the engagements between it and the university workers since 2009.
In their letter to Tinubu, the university teachers listed the unresolved issues as: the conclusion of the renegotiated FGN/ASUU agreement based on the Nimi Briggs Committee’s draft agreement of 2021; release of withheld three-and-half salaries on account of the 2022 strike by the union; release of salaries of staff on sabbatical, part-time and adjunct appointments due to the application of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System ; release of outstanding third-party deductions...
It was the failure of former President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to do something on the matter that compelled ASUU to go on strike from February to October 2022, with dire consequences for the university system. Almost one year of no teaching, no learning in the universities in a country that claims to be striving for national development, the most populous black nation that prides itself as the giant of Africa? It is sad.