ASUU leaders begin to sing discordant tunes

Leaders of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) are beginning to contradict themselves over the reasons they embarked on their on-going strike which had entered its eighth month.

While some of the leaders in the south-south region said on Wednesday that the Federal Government’s insistence on enrolling varsity teachers in the Integrated Personnel Payroll Scheme (IPPS), was the cause of the unending strike, a leader in Yola said on Friday that IPPIS was not at the crux of the strike.

Prof. Augustine Ndaghu, coordinator in Yola said on Friday that the dispute between the union and the Federal Government was based on a Memorandum of Action (MOA) which government had failed to execute since Feb. 7, 2019.

“For the records, the IPPIS is not the reason why we are currently on strike.

“We are on strike because of Federal Government’s unwillingness to honour the 2019 Memorandum of Action address five fundamental issues in contention.

“In our understanding, IPPIS is a distraction plan by government to retrogress the wheel of progress of the smooth resolution of the contentious issues,’’ Ndaghu said.

He said two of the five major issues in dispute are the provision of revitalisation fund for public universities and the constitution of visitation panels to federal universities.

The other three, he said, were renegotiation of a 2008 FG-ASUU agreement, the payment of arrears of Earned Academic Allowances and the proliferation of state universities and their affairs.

The coordinator accused some top Federal Government officials of deliberately trying to deny the children of common citizens of access to tertiary education.

“From their body language, we now understand that funding public universities is waste of funds,’’ Ndaghu charged.