The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has expressed optimism that the newly signed agreement with the Federal Government will guarantee industrial peace for at least the next three years.
On Wednesday, both parties signed and unveiled the fresh pact, which is designed to strengthen the university education system and promote stability across public institutions.
ASUU has, over the years, embarked on several strike actions to press for increased funding of public universities, improved welfare for lecturers, and the full implementation of earlier agreements.
Speaking on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief on Thursday, ASUU President, Prof. Chris Piwuna, said the success of the agreement depends largely on proper implementation and monitoring.
“There are measurable aspects of the agreement, and we believe we can monitor it that way,” Prof. Piwuna said.
“If we monitor it, we can raise concerns before it gets to a head, and we hope that in three years’ time there will be no strike at all until this agreement is reviewed again.”
He explained that the agreement establishes an Implementation Monitoring Team, which will be domiciled at the National Universities Commission (NUC) and coordinated by the office of the NUC’s Executive Secretary.
According to him, the team will be responsible for tracking compliance and ensuring that all provisions of the agreement are consistently respected.
Prof. Piwuna also confirmed that the long-disputed 2009 agreement, which had triggered several strikes due to unresolved issues, has now been replaced.
He noted that all future implementation references by the union will be based strictly on the new 2025 agreement.
“It is believed that we now have the 2025 agreement; all references will be made to the 2025 agreement. The 2009 agreement is no longer what we will refer to, but there are aspects of the 1992 agreement signed by Professor Attahiru Jega that we still refer to as a guide to understand why we are where we are—it is history,” he said.
“So, 2009 is history, and we will continue to refer to our history so that we are properly guided. But for implementation, there is really nothing in the 2009 agreement that we are going to implement; it will be the 2025 agreement.”