UNIJOS ASUU gives conditions to end strike

• By Joke Falaju, Abuja on January 14, 2016 5:09 am

THE Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) University of Jos chapter yesterday said it would not immediately call off the ongoing strike even if the university management meets its conditions. The industrial action started about 12 weeks ago.
ASUU Chairman, Dr. Chris Pewuna, stated this at a forum while responding to questions on why the chapter has been adamant on resuming academic activities after months of closure of the institution.
According to Pewuna, the industrial action has been taken over by the national ASUU, making it difficult for the chapter to resume immediately if the institution meets its demands.
He said that the crisis was escalated by the refusal of the management to discuss some salient issues with the union before the national body intervened.
Pewuna pointed out that the university system has rules and procedures, which ASUU had followed religiously and consistently, adding that they had on their part written several letters to the administration just as they had replied to all the letters emanating from the management.
“We held meetings with them and at each of the meetings, they made promises to us, but these promises were never kept by the administration. And so that is where we are at this point. We had to take this action because we had given the administration enough time. We told them all that needed to be done, and we are just not getting anywhere at all, so the strike action had to take place,” he stressed.
He said that at every meeting ASUU always ask management to put their verbal promises into writing.
“I think one or two of such letters were written by the Vice Chancellor himself. Yes, they responded to us. They responded knowing that they had no intention whatsoever to do what they put in writing.”
The ASUU chairman also recalled the funds given to the university by the Federal Government as academic allowances, which were he said was disbursed arbitrarily, adding that 300 of the members were not paid.
He explained that, “When the Federal Government gave the University of Jos N1.161 billion for our earned academic allowance, the template accompanying that money was not applied by the University of Jos. They are in a better position to tell the world why they did not use that template. It was at this point things went wrong.”
Expatiating on who is entitled to the earned academic allowance, Pewuna explained, as the name clearly states, “you must have earned it, it must be related to your academic activities and that is what the name is.