The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) national president, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, stated that they have not heard from the government despite meeting with Prof. Nimi Briggs' renegotiation committee, therefore there does not appear to be a resolution in sight to the university teachers' strike.
The committee is anticipated to renegotiate with all of the striking unions and analyze the draft proposed 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement.
The Briggs renegotiation committee had been meeting with the unions since April 2022 to discuss the many problems of the 2009 agreement.
According to Osodeke, the Federal Government has not yet responded to the report of meetings that have already taken place.
He stated: "The government has not phoned us for any feedback since our meeting with the Briggs committee. The committee's only communication to us was that they were awaiting word from their principal and would contact us once they had it.
Osodeke claimed that they had not received the invitation for a subsequent meeting and that nothing is currently happening.
But he bemoaned that since May 2021, "the same manner they told us they were waiting for the FG and yet no result," this had been the reality.
Similar to how the Briggs committee stated it would report to the Federal Government for further action, Ibrahim Mohammed, national president of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), claimed all they had done was assessments and reviews. While ASUU began its strike on February 14, SSANU's strike began on March 27 with a two-week warning strike.
The Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) inconsistency, unpaid earned allowances, a delay in the renegotiation of the agreements between the FGN, SSANU, and Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Allied Institutions (NASU), as well as the failure to pay minimum wage arrears are just a few of the demands made by SSANU.
Others include usurping the leadership of non-teaching units in flagrant violation of conditions of employment and establishment processes, neglecting and underfunding public universities, failing to pay retirement benefits to departing union members, and others.
The 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement must be renegotiated, the release of earned allowances for university teachers, and the implementation of the Universities Transparency and Accountability System (UTAS) for the payment of university lecturers' salaries and benefits are among the requests made by ASUU.
