ASUU Expects Academic Stability over New Agreement

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has expressed hope that the new agreement the union signed with the Federal Government to address salary and other pending issues will prevent industrial actions for at least three years.

“We hope that in three years’ time there will be no strike at all until this agreement is reviewed again,” said ASUU president, Chris Piwuna, on Thursday.

The union and the federal government unveiled the new long-awaited agreement January 14 designed to improve the quality of the university education and ensure academic stability.

The new agreement was signed after decades of repeated strikes by the union to press home their demands, including increased funding for public universities, better welfare for lecturers and full enforcement of previous agreements, among others.

In an interview on Thursday, Mr Piwuna said the new agreement could forestall industrial action for years if religiously and effectively implemented.

“There are measurable aspects of the agreement, and we believe we can monitor it that way. If we monitor it, we can raise concerns before it gets to a head,” he said.

Stating that the controversial 2009 Agreement had been replaced, Mr Piwuna explained that all references for implementation by the union would now be made from the new 2025 agreement.

He stated, “It is believed that we now have the 2025 agreement. All references will be made to the 2025 agreement. The 2009 agreement is no longer what we will refer to, but there are aspects of the 1992 agreement signed by Professor Attahiru Jega that we still refer to as a guide to understand why we are where we are.

“So, 2009 is history, and we will continue to refer to our history so that we are properly guided. But for implementation, there is really nothing in the 2009 agreement that we are going to implement. It will be the 2025 agreement.”

The ASUU president added that the new agreement featured an Implementation Monitoring Team, to be situated at the National Universities Commission (NUC) and coordinated by the office of the Executive Secretary of the NUC, to monitor the agreement and ensure proper follow-ups.