The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has admonished the federal government to implement the December 2020 Memorandum of Action (MoA) or risk fresh industrial action across the country.
The union added that despite the federal government’s affirmed commitment to payment of withheld salaries of its members, a total of 26 lecturers from the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, are being owned salary arrears of between one to nine months by the government.
The Sokoto Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Jamilu Shehu, who made the declaration while addressing journalists shortly after its meeting at the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua University, Katsina, frowned upon what he termed the slow pace of implementation of the December MoA by the federal government.
He, therefore, threatened that the union would resume its suspended strike over the failure of the federal government to implement outstanding issues contained in the December 2020 MoA.
He noted that the outstanding issues in the MoA included withheld salaries, payment and mainstreaming of Earned Academic Allowances (EAA), the proliferation of state universities, funding for the revitalization of the public universities, university transparency, and accountability solution (UTAS), and renegotiation exercise.
He said: “In view of the foregoing, therefore, ASUU Sokoto Zone, frowns on the slow pace of the implementation of the December 2020 MoA reached with the government.
“We are, hence, calling for all the concerned parties, particularly the federal government to urgently address these issues in line with the spirit and letters of the December 2020 MoA or risk industrial action.”
