2009 agreement: ASUU calls for reopening of negotiation

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Owerri zone, has called on the Federal Government to urgently open renegotiation on the 2009 agreement with the union to avoid industrial disharmony.

Coordinator of the zone, Dr Uzo Onyebinama, read out the position of the union to journalists after meeting of the executives held at the Nnamdi Azikwe University Awka on Wednesday.

Onyebinama stated that after the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, there was a provision for the renegotiation of the agreement every three years, but regretted that it was in March 2017 that the first renegotiation was held.

He added that the meeting broke down since May 2018, because of what he tagged “deliberate tactics adopted by the leader of government team to scuttle the renegotiation.’’

The unionist said that government team was rooting for funding of education via diverse sources with the proposal for the establishment of `Education Bank and students’ loan scheme.’

“Students’ loan scheme is a deliberate effort to commercialise public universities and an incentive for private universities to thrive and untimely deny the children of poor Nigerians access to university education,’’ he said.

Onyebinama maintained that the union’s call for the reopening of meeting between it and the Federal Government was a clear demonstration in ASUU’s belief in dialogue and due process.

He however, said that if government failed to do the needful, the members of the union might be forced to embark on industrial action.