The Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU), has decided to shelve its planned industrial action aimed at compelling the Federal Government to meet its demands.
The union said this in a statement made available to the media by its President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, on Sunday.
Offering reasons for the new move after weeks of threatening to ground university education again, ASUU said this was to enable more consultations and give government another opening to address all outstanding issues arising from the December 2020 Memorandum of Action.
He said: “NEC took full account of efforts by student union bodies, leading media traditional rulers, civil society organisations and other interest groups within and outside Nigeria to make government address all outstanding issues arising from the December 2020 MoA.”
The statement read in part: “NEC was worried by the spirited efforts of government agents to reduce the demands of ASUU to a regime of intermittent payment of watered-down revitalisation fund and release of distorted and grossly devalued Earned Academic Allowances (EAA).
“NEC condemns, in strong terms, the surreptitious moves to pooh-pooh our demands on the review of the NUC’s Act to curb the proliferation of universities by state governments who are not funding the existing ones; adoption of the University Transparency Accountability Solutions (UTAS) with concurrent discontinuance of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel accumulated promotion arrears.
“NEC concluded that government has failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement and subsequent MoUs and MoAs.
“However, considering the ongoing intervention and consultation efforts, NEC resolved to review the situation at a later date with a view to deciding on the next line of action.”
