By Hope-Feyisayo Temitope
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), had threatened to embark on a strike, over the non-implementation of agreements reached with the Federal Government, in two weeks time.
The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman had on June 26, invited the union for a meeting to deliberate on the lingering issues affecting universities and to avert the planned strike, which Osodeke claimed that none of the agreements reached with the Federal Government had been implemented.
Osodeke said the academic allowances due to their members had also accumulated for over six years and nothing had been done about it, revisiting the issue of revitalisation fund, he said they agreed on the NEEDs Assessment Report to raise N200 billion yearly, for five years.
“Since 2013, only one has been paid. We need revitalisation funds to upgrade our universities to standard, so that we can have students and lecturers from outside the country,” he said.
He added that the government was yet to stop the building of more universities adding that many new universities were being approved without funds to run them.
He said the government was also yet to exit the university salary payment from Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System!(IPPIS) as approved by the Federal Executive Council in January
He said their members were still being paid by IPPIS against the directive by the FEC.