Strike: ASUU gives Buhari govt new condition

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has given the Federal Government a fresh condition to end the prolonged ongoing strike.

ASUU insisted that the Federal Government would have to pay the salary backlog to lecturers, conserving that without the move, unfinished academic sessions should be forgotten.

President of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, stated this on Friday, explaining that though public universities have been shut since February this year, the lecturers should be paid since they have to teach to make up for time lost during the closure.

Osodeke was speaking during an interview on Channels Television’s breakfast show, Sunrise Daily following the Federal Government’s insistence on non-payment of the lecturers’ salaries over the industrial action.

He said, “If we agree on that, therefore, the lectures we should’ve given [to students] for 2020/2021 and 2021/22 [sessions], should be allowed to go so we start a new session, 2022/23, in September.

“Therefore, by July next year, I will go on my leave as we used to have in those days so that the backlog is gone. All the lectures that remain; all the two sets of admissions that JAMB has given that are waiting should become irrelevant.”

Osodeke explained that when “other unions go on strike and come back, all those periods for which you are on strike, you don’t need to do the backlog of work.

“But for ASUU, when we go back today, we’re going to start from the 2020/2021 session. For these two sets of students that have been admitted by JAMB, we’ve to teach them over these periods to ensure that we meet up with the system.

“So, we’re going to do the backlog of the work we’ve left behind. We aren’t going to start today and say ‘This session is 2022/23, therefore, all these two sets of people that have been admitted by JAMB are cancelled. We have to take another admission for the 2023/24 session’.”