Enough Is Enough, Says Asuu As Religious Leaders, Traditional Rulers, And Others Are Urged To Prevail On FG

Also, President Muhammadu Buhari has been called upon to be sincere and decisive in his intervention in the crisis in order to salvage what is remaining in the quality of the country’s educational sector.

The calls were made by the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) at the end of its Congress held on Thursday insisting that unless positive steps were taken, the strike action will resume and even more total than previous ones.

Chairman of the ASUU, Dr Ibrahim Inuwa who addressed Journalists after the Congress said that, “The Congress, just as it had done in the past 3 meetings, has given us to inform the National that it is ready to go along in the resuming of the strike action. Enough is enough since the government is not sincere with the Union”.

The ASUU Branch Chairman added that, “Since 2009, members of ASUU have remained on the same salary grade level. The agreement is that promotion shall be based on the current exchange rate of the Dollar. You can imagine what we are going through now considering the economic situation”.

The Union lamented that many of its members have not been paid their salaries for as long as 12 months due to the inadequate of the IPPIS which has brought untold hardship to the lecturers.

On the earned allowance, ASUU lamented that the federal government has always reneged on the release which has put the lecturers in a more difficult situation as they tried to perform their duties.

ASUU also berated the Federal Government for not releasing the N1.5 Trillion Universities revitalization funds saying that since the administration of former President Good luck Jonathan released N200b, the present administration only released paltry sums which has not even gone round the public universities.

The Union lamented that, “while the government is paying lip service and dragging feet on the implementation of the MoUs and MoAs, it went ahead to increase students charges claiming that the system will collapse if the charges remained what they were. Who is fooling who?

Ibrahim Inuwa who was flanked on either side by other leaders of the Union declared that, “It is wrong for anyone to say that ASUU is insensitive to the problem the strike will have on the academic lives of the students. We too are feeling the pains. The situation is just beyond our control”.

On the call by President Muhammadu Buhari on ASUU to rescind its decision to go on strike, ATBU ASUU said that, “Mr President too should be sincere in implementing the various MoUs and MoAs in order to have stability in the tertiary education sector. We are tired of deceit and empty promises”.

The ATBU branch of the ASUU then declared that its members are fully ready and committed to the resumption of the suspended total strike action by the Union until its demands as contained in all the MoUs and MoAs entered into were met