Promises Can’t Replace Agreements’ Implementation, ASUU Tells Buhari

Kemi Olaitan

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday said it was tired of the insincerity of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration over its failure to fully implement the agreements reached with the government.

The Chairman and Secretary of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomoso chapter of the union, Dr. Biodun Olaniran and Dr. Toyin Abegunrin, respectively stated this in a release they signed after the congress of the union held yesterday.

In reaction to the promise of the president that he would fulfill agreements reached with the union, the lecturers pointed out that promises alone without action cannot replace implementation of the agreements.

According to them, various agreements had been reached between ASUU and the government, but the government had refused to sign what would make the welfare of lecturers to be better and had been employing merry-go-round tactics.

He stated that their members have resolved to embark on an indefinite strike since government was not ready to do the needful.

While asking Nigerians to prevail on government to avert the impending strike, ASUU said it had allowed many stakeholders to talk to government that continued to portray the union as a dog that was only capable of barking and not biting.

The statement read: “Our Union, ASUU, is using this medium to call upon the federal government of Nigeria once again to implement the agreement it (FG) has signed with ASUU. It is unfortunate to mentioned that the federal government signed agreement with ASUU since 2009 but the agreement is not implemented till date.

“The agreement was renegotiated in the name of peace. But to our dismay, the government has refused to sign the renegotiated agreement. In order to make the implementation of the agreement easy for the federal government, the union has limited its demands to only three.”

He listed the demands to include the signing/implementation of the renegotiated agreement of 2009; adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Software (UTAS) instead of the controversial IPPIS.

Conclusions on these matters had been reached with the government several months ago but yet, the federal government had been avoiding the final stage of signing the agreement, they stated.

“All the federal government was doing is promising all the time. The federal government has taken the union for a toothless bulldog that can only bark but cannot bite. We, as a union have taken time to pull the long rope with the government until our patience is completely exhausted.

“Our union is tired of the merry-go-round approach devised by the government about the same issues. We can no longer tolerate the swinging pendulum (with a declining amplitude) attitude the government set for us. We have endured enough with such insincerity.

“We have resolve to embark on indefinite strike action if government failed to yield to our demands within a specified period of time.

“The union therefore, is using this medium to call on well-meaning Nigerians and the general public to call the FG to order in this respect, and that it (government) should respect its agreements with ASUU.”