ASUU vows to continue strike until FG agrees to demands

BENIN CITY—Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Benin Zone, yesterday, expressed the resolve of members to stay at home for up to 10 years than call off the current strike action embarked upon by the union five weeks ago, if the Federal Government continues to shy away from the agreement it reached with the union in 2009. President Goodluck Jonathan had Tuesday, approved the implementation of the recommendation of the government committee on repositioning of federal and state universities. But the Benin Zone of ASUU described as a shame, government’s refusal to meet its end of the Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, entered with ASUU in 2009, wherein government promised to release N100 billion immediately out of the N500billion it agreed to pay. The Zonal Coordinator, Benin zone of ASUU, Dr. Ighalo Sunny, said yesterday, that part of the MOU signed in 2012 between the Federal Government and the union was that government will increase the yearly budgetary allocation to the educational sector to 26 per cent among others. He said: “It is sad that government has failed to fulfill the agreement on the universities. The N500 billion is not to pay lecturers but to fund infrastructural decay in Nigerian universities. What that means is that government has not shown readiness to implement same. For us, the solution is simple, honour and implement fully the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement. We believe that the 2009 agreement is the antidote to the debilitating crisis bedevilling Nigerian universities.” Describing the rumour that ASUU will soon call-off the strike as a folktale, he noted that the union appreciates the interest shown by stakeholders and groups in the crisis, “ but that will not stop us from finding lasting solution to the decay in our education sector. So, even if it takes us another 10 years, we will remain at home until the right thing is done.”