ASUU Again Extends Strike, Shuts Varsities till September

The hope of the University Students who have been at home since February 14, 2022, has been dashed as they will remain stranded as industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has been extended by another four weeks till September.

This extension was confirmed in a release signed by the President of the Union, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, on Monday, August 1, as the Union said the roll-over was to give Government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.

Osodeke  said “The strike is due to the failure of the federal government to renegotiate the agreement it signed with ASUU in 2009 including adequate funding of the system, replacement of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), with the UTAS, as the payment platform in the university sector, among others”.

The teachers argued that IPPIS has never worked in any university system anywhere, adding that the system shuts the doors against foreign scholars, contract officers and researchers needed to be poached from existing universities to stabilize new ones.

However, the Federal Government maintains that the payment model is for transparency and neither intended to trample upon university autonomy.

By the extension, the impasse which commenced on February 14, has left the universities locked and students stranded for six months.