Barely 48 hours after the Academic Staff Union Of Universities, ASUU, extended its three months strike by 12 weeks, the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union, COEASU, has given the government a 21-day strike notice.
The decision was reached after COEASU National Executive Council, NEC, deliberated extensively on the outcome of referenda, conducted across the chapters of the union.
In a statement jointly signed by COEASU President, Smart Olugbeko and General Secretary, Ahmed Bazza Lawan, while calling on well-meaning Nigerians and stakeholders, to prevail on the government, to urgently take appropriate actions, before the ultimatum lapses, resolved that in the unexpected event that Government fails to do the needful within the period of the ultimatum, the union shall declare appropriate industrial action.
Included in COEASU’s grouse with the government are delays in the renegotiation of the COEASU-FGN 2010 Agreement, with the Federal Government refusing to constitute her renegotiation team, after acknowledging receipt of the union’s team list.
Others include the non-release of pledged N15b Revitalization Fund, which the union argue is already a far cry from N478b, being the outcome of the 2014 Presidential Needs Assessment, across public Colleges of Education, and what COEASU calls,
FG’s Recalcitrant insistence on IPPIS, against the more reliable alternative of UTAS, notes that up till the end of March 2022, over 1,219 lecturers in the Colleges are experiencing one problem or the other with IPPIS.
COEASU demands the adoption of UTAS, an alternative innovation of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
COEASU is also complaining about the poor funding of the Colleges of Education, and the poor conditions across state-owned colleges,
despite agitations, and the government’s persistent promise of redress, both Federal and State Colleges remain poorly funded, with a reign of impunity, non-payment of salary and salary arrears, refusal to implement the statutory salary structure in full, extraneous promotion criteria, idiosyncratic policies, non/improper domestication of 65-year retirement age for workers in the Colleges of Education system, multiple promotions without financial effects, repression of union activities, as well as non-release of running cost by the government.
Editor: Ifeanyi Mark
