ASUU Strike: We Won’t Be Forced into Negotiations- FG
The Federal Ministry of Education has called on ASUU to end the strike to avoid having negotiations under duress that would lead to the FG giving empty promises. The Ministry categorically stated that it will not be forced into reaching an agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, this was made known in an interview earlier today by the ministry of education Press and Public Relations officer, Mr. Ben Goong.
Reacting to the statement made by the union about the federal government not doing anything reasonable to resolve the strike, Mr. Goong also responded by saying the government has infact put in a few efforts such as, setting up a new negotiation committee and have NITDA carry out an integrity test on the preferred UTAS payment platform to prevent the strike from commencing.
In his words; ”If I were ASUU, I would call off the strike and that is what we are telling ASUU to do. Call off the strike so that nobody will be negotiating under of pressure. If you continue the strike, we will have agreements we would not keep to.“
“If they continue the strike, in a desperate attempt to make sure that the universities are re-opened, we will be forced to make agreements under coercion and we are not in a state of war. We are not in a state of war and it is only right for ASUU to call off the strike since the federal government has already begun negotiations.”
ASUU, in a statement issued on Sunday, accused Mr. Inuwa of deliberately misinforming the public and invited the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, as well as the NITDA boss to a public debate over the integrity of UTAS.
The statement by Osodeke, read in part,
“The one-month roll-over strike by our union on February 14, 2022, has entered its fourth week. During this period, we have been having engagements with the government over the contending issues that necessitated the action. One of the contending issues is the deployment of the UTAS, which is a robust software created by the ASUU technical group to manage personnel and payroll in the university system.
“This press statement is relevant for ASUU to set the records straight on the grounds already covered in the struggle to get the government to deploy UTAS as a suitable payment platform.“
