Strike: ASUP issues 21-day ultimatum to Fed Govt

From Emma Elekwa

The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has threatened to down tool over unfulfilled promises of the Federal Government to its demands.

The union issued a 21-day ultimatum to the government to address its agitations or risk an indefinite withdrawal of its services nationwide.

Rising yesterday from its 96th National Executives Council (NEC) meeting at the Federal Polytechnic, Oko, Anambra State, ASUP urged its organs and chapters to mobilise for the proposed strike, as it put it, to rescue the sector from imminent collapse.

Its President Usman Dutse, who read the six-point communique, titled: Renewed Threats to the Survival of Polytechnic Education in Nigeria: the Position of the ASUP, regretted what he called government’s refusal to respond to its correspondences.

The communique reads: “Our union has been in constant engagements with the Nigerian government in different scales with significant outcomes.

“However, recent events in the sector have reawakened our consciousness to our strategic position in the sector and our responsibility to ensure it does not collapse in deed.”

Dutse listed the union’s areas of concern to include an attempt to forcefully enrol its members into the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), non-implementation of Federal Polytechnics Act 2019 Amendment, as well as continued victimisation of union officers.

He said: “The committee set up to renegotiate our agreement with the government since 2015 is yet to respond to our charter of demands, submitted 10 months ago, and government has refused all entreaties to reconvene the renegotiation.

“Our union has been complaining that insertions that undermine global best practices in tertiary education have been forced into the scheme of service currently at the final stages of the review process.

“Critical aspects of the Memorandum of Settlement (MOS) signed between our union and the government are yet to be implemented since 2017, including non-release of the NEEDS assessment funds to polytechnics non-release of revitalisation fund for the sector.”