The stalemate outcome of the latest meeting between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government casts doubts on immediate end to the lingering strike embarked upon by the union.
This is as ASUU president, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke condemned the government, saying it brought nothing to the negotiation table for the meeting and has not shown any commitment.
Osodeke made the submission on Wednesday during a Twitter Space organised by Premium Times in which he spoke on the outcome of Tuesday’s meeting with the government which ended in a deadlock.
ASUU president further said the current situation is worse than it was in the beginning. He added that the government is claiming it has no funds.
According to Osodeke, such claims are simply unbelievable, stressing that the only thing the present administration is focused on is how to win the 2023 elections.
In his words, “The situation now is that it’s even worse than when we started. The government has not shown any responsibility on how to fund our university system and education in general.
“They only claim they don’t have funds, no one can believe that. There are no funds and one man can steal N109 billion and the government is trying to negotiate with him? The government has not shown any commitment.
“We met with them yesterday and they came with nothing. It is very sad that all Nigerian universities are closed and all the government is interested in, is how to win elections and Nigerian people are watching.”
Recall that ASUU embarked on a one-month strike on February 14, 2022, over a series of disagreements with the federal government and non-implementation of agreements.
The union extended the strike on March 14 by two months.
They further extended the strike after the two months expired and now it has entered its 168th day as of August 1, 2022.
Some of the issues causing disagreement between ASUU and the federal government are the demand for the adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) instead of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), payment of revitalization funds, the poor funding of universities, non-payment of salaries and allowances of some university lectures, as well as the non-payment of earned academic allowance to lecturers, among other issues.
