A peaceful protest has been organized by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) at Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi branch, to demand the conclusion of the 2009 renegotiation.
Members of the union gathered en masse at the ASUU secretariat in the university, shouting solidarity songs to stress their demands, claiming that this was important to avoid plunging the nation’s public university system into another unnecessary strike.
The ASUU members displayed placards with various statements, urging the Federal Government to conclude the 2009 renegotiation, which has been delayed for 15 years.
Addressing journalists at the University’s main gate at the end of the protest, ASUU Chairperson Dr Ibrahim Ibrahim stated that the protest’s goal was to draw the government’s attention to their long-standing demands, emphasizing that the government should resume negotiations with the union and take the necessary action.
The union’s Chairperson, represented by ASUU Vice Chairperson Mohammed Mohammed Inti, listed the union’s demands, which included the conclusion of the 2009 Renegotiation, which had been delayed for 15 years, payment of Academic Allowances, release of withheld salaries, payment of promotion arrears, rejection of IPPIS, provision of adequate funding for public universities, and reverting the illegal dissolution of the public universities’ governing council.
“Today, we are holding a protest at the zonal level, presently the Chairpersons of the zone are holding press conferences and in each of the branches, the Vice-Chairpersons are leading the protest on our issues with the government “
“We have been on negotiation for the past 15 years and uptil now the negotiation has not yielded anything positive.We are calling on the government to call us back so that we can resume the negotiation that we started long ago.
“We have our earned allowances that have been approved by the previous government and has been budgeted for, unfortunately, the implementation has not taken place. Also, there is the issue of our three and half month salaries that is still pending, up till now, it has not been paid” he said.