ASUU extends strike by another 4 weeks

The ongoing industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has been extended by another four weeks.

This was disclosed in a press statement signed by the President of the Union, President Emmanuel Osodeke, on Monday.

The Union said the roll-over was to give Government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.

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 lecturers say 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.

But the Federal Government insists that the payment model is for transparency and neither intended to trample upon university autonomy.

By the extension, the face-off which commenced on February 14, has entered its sixth month.