The Federal University of Lafia (FULafia) chapter of Academic Staff Union of Universities has protested over outstanding welfare issues concerning their members.
Speaking during the protest on Wednesday in the university, Comr. Sunday Orinya, ASUU Chairman at institution said that said that the protest was in compliance with the directive by the National Executive Council (NEC) of the union.
He said that it was aimed at calling for the attention of the Federal Government (FG) to the abysmal material conditions of their members and deplorable state of infrastructure at the public universities.
“NEC directed all branches nation-wide to sensitise and mobilise her members for a possible strike action over the silence of President Bola Tinubu-led government on the lingering issues affecting public universities.
“The looming industrial action cum mobilization is a resolution reached by ASUU at its emergency National Executive Council (NEC) meeting which held at the University of Abuja recently.
The ASUU Chairs explained that the protest became necessary due to the inability of the government to implement the renegotiated 2009 ASUU /FG agreement.
“For the avoidance of doubt, and as you may be aware, there was a joint Renegotiating committee of the 2009 ASUU/ FG agreement comprising representatives of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) and the ASUU team which produced the First, Second and Third Draft Agreements.
“The First Draft Agreement was coordinated by the Emeritus Prof Munzali Jibril, who took over the chairmanship of the joint Renegotiating Committee from Dr Wale Babalakin.
“That Draft was submitted in May 2021, but was rejected by the same government who constituted it a year later. The Second and current Draft was arrived at after the government’s team was reconstituted in April 2022 under the chairmanship of Emeritus Prof Nimi Briggs.
“The Briggs-led Committee commenced their work with extensive consultations with heads of relevant units in the MDAs and shared a written submission of the findings with ASUU.
“We were reassured then, that the new committee had a clear mandate to review the Munzali-led Committee’s report through a collective bargaining process in tendem with the principles of the International Labour Organisation (ILO),” he added.
Orinya said that some of their demands are; other resumption of negotiation on new salary package and conditions of service; funding for revitalization of universities; payment of backlog of Earned Academic Allowances and accumulated promotion arrears.
Others are; release of our withheld salaries; and the adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Solutions (UTAS) with concurrent discontinuance of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) among others.
The chairman therefore appealed to act now to forestall another distortion of academic activities in the public universities. (NAN).