Education To Suffer Setback As ASUP Threatens Nationwide Strike

The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has threatened to embark on strike over the failure of the Federal Government to implement a Memorandum of Action (MoA) it signed with the Union in April 2021.

The National Publicity Secretary of ASUP, Abdullahi Yalwa, made this known in a communiqué issued at the end of the National Executive Council meeting of the union on Sunday.

Yalwa said ASUP members would withdraw their services across the country if the government fails to implement the MoA, despite the three-month suspension corridor granted by the union.

He disclosed that there will be no further warnings if the government does not quickly avert another round of strikes.

Yalwa, however, urged the public to hold the government and its agencies responsible for any other breakdown of industrial harmony in polytechnics.

The statement reads in parts, “In view of the unsatisfactory status of the implementation of the Union’s MoA signed with the government in April 2021, the Nigerian public should hold the government and its agencies responsible for any other breakdown of industrial harmony in the sector as our Union and her members have shown considerable patience and restraint.

“The Union once again demands that the government should without further delay ensure the release of the arrears of the minimum wage to staff, release the approved revitalization fund for the sector and set up the implementation committee to administer the funds, recommence the renegotiation of the Union’s 2010 agreement and withdraw institutional accreditation to state-owned institutions where salaries are owed to staff.”

Yalwa added that the union was unhappy with the non-release of minimum wage arrears to the staff of federal polytechnics and several state-owned polytechnics.

He stated that the union also berated the government for the non-release of the approved sum of N15 billion revitalization fund for the sector more than three months after the approval.