The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has extended its national strike by four more weeks, which further dampens the hope of Nigerian students of returning to their various citadels of learning.
The striking lecturers shut down public universities on February 14, 2022, following the inability of the federal government to implement a Memorandum of Action (MoA) entered by the two parties in 2020.
ASUU’s decision to extend the strike is coming a few days after President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, to hand off negotiations with the ASUU to the minister of Education, Adamu Adamu.
However, ASUU extended the ongoing strike by another four weeks after its roll-over strike expired on July 31, 2022.
The Union’s president, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, disclosed the union’s decision in a press statement titled, “Review of the Roll-over Strike.”
He said the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Union took the decision after extensive deliberations and taking cognisance of the government’s past failures to abide by its timelines in addressing issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA).
Osodeke said NEC resolved that the strike be rolled over for four weeks to give the government more time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.
The role-over strike action, according to him, is with effect from 12:01 am on Monday, August 14, 2022.
The NEC meeting took place against the backdrop of the government’s obligations as spelt out in the Memorandum of Action (MoA) it signed with ASUU on December 23, 2020.