50 Days Strike, ASUP, Insists on Not Calling Off, Until Government meets demands

The Association of Polytechnics lecturers in Nigeria, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has demanded that the government should at least meet the resolution it had with the Union on 27th April which was brought to abysmal low.

They made this known while briefing the Newsmen at the Auditorium of Federal Polytechnic Oko, Anambra State.

The National President of ASUP, Comrade Anderson Ezeibe, flanked by the Federal Polytechnic Oko branch Chairman of ASUP, Comrade Onyebuchi Igbokwe and his executive said the association, for now, was asking for only #19 billion out of a total #823 billion that Federal Government earlier agreed with the union to inject into the polytechnics education Nation wide since 2018.

Comrade Ezeibe, noted that the 19 billion naira comprised of 15 billion revitalisation fund and 4 billion to offset their accumulated arrears on minimum wage.

ASUP President said “On the 27th of April, we entered into a resolution with the Federal Government, and there is a stance in the resolution that demanded immediate implementation. For instance, the government had made an offer to release 15 billion Naira as infrastructure revitalisation fund for the sector in lieu of the implementation of needs assessment survey’
‘Our members across all the Federal Polytechnics are owned for ten months with respect to arrears. The government accepted this particular responsibility and also entered into a resolution with us that they going to ensure immediate release of this fund, which amounted to 4 billion Naira but up till now they have not made an effort’, he narrated.

www.odogwublog.com reports that the on going Strike has lasted for 50 days, according to the National President, it would be ascribed to poor Funding, lack of supervision and improper Regulation.

In his words ‘We are on strike because the sector is not properly funded; we have issues around supervision, from the supervising ministry; we have issues in respect to regulations, where we believe that the sector had not been properly regulated because core essence of regulations is to, set and enforce standard; they cannot be standard when workers are demotivated, laws are violated at will, there are gaps in area if infrastructure, so there is no proper regulation in these sector’.

www.odogwublog.com reports further that the ASUP President insisted that all efforts made by the association was of the interest of the students, which he said was in bid to impact actual knowledge to student and for them to come to out better equipped to face the society.

Meanwhile, the association refuted the claims from the office of Account General of the Federation which stated that about twenty Polytechnics have tax liability amounting to over 19 billion. They insisted that no attempt should be made towards reduction of their salary as the claims is regarded as unfounded.

However, Comrade Ezibe advised Federal government to do the needful while he stated that until they are communicated on the extent the government had gone to implement the resolution signed in April 2021, that the strike would still be on.