UNIOSUN won’t join ASUU strike, says varsity

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The Administration of Osun State University (UNIOSUN) has announced that the institution has no intention of joining the ongoing strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.

Monday’s statement from the University’s Public Relations Officer, Adesoji Ademola, contains this information.

Dr. Wende Olaosebikan, acting chairman of the ASUU branch at the school, has stated that the administration’s position is in opposition to his remarks.

Adesoji stated that the institution will not participate in the ASUU strike to avoid disrupting the academic calendar.

“The selling point of UniOsun is that we don’t miss or extend our academic calendar. Our four years is always four years.

“We have, at a point called the ASUU national chairman, and we made our position known concerning joining ASUU strikes.

“We want to inform the University students, stakeholders and the general public that UniOsun has no plan to join the ASUU strike.

“Our students have resumed the rain semester academic session and lectures will commence very soon,” Adesoji said.

Adesoji urged all students to disregard any information on UniOsun will soon join the ASUU strike.

NAN reports that on February 15, ASUU began a four-week rollover strike following the Federal Government’s failure to meet its demands.

The National President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said the decision was taken after the union’s National Executive Committee meeting.

Osodeke said since the last meeting the union had with the federal government in December 2021, it had not received any formal invitation from the government.

ASUU extended the action by another three months to afford the government more time to address all of its demands.

The union also accused the government of displaying an indifferent attitude toward its demands.

Osodeke, in a statement to announce the extension of the rollover strike, noted that the national executive council of the union “was disappointed that Government did not treat the matters involved with utmost urgency they deserved during the four-week period as expected of a reasonable, responsive, and well-meaning administration”.

He said the NEC concluded that the government had failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2020 Memorandum of Action within the four-week roll-over strike period and resolved that the strike be rolled over for another eight weeks.

Osodeke said the strike continues over the government’s failure to “satisfactorily” implement the Memorandum of Action it signed with the Union in December 2020 on funding for revitalisation of public universities (both Federal and States), renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU Agreement and the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution.

Other demands of the union as listed by ASUU include Earned Academic Allowances, State Universities, promotion arrears, withheld salaries, and non-remittance of third-party deductions.

(NAN)