By Damilare Adeleye
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has declared indefinite strike at the Gombe State University (GSU) over unending lecturers’ welfare issues.
ASUU branch Chairman, Dr Suleiman Salihu Jauro, told newsmen on Wednesday that the strike action became necessary as a result of poor teaching and learning activities at the university.
He said over the years, the union had tried other channels to secure amicable resolution of the issues with no tangible results.
“Some of the issues are the non-implementation of the 2021 Memorandum of Action (MoA) between the ASUU and the state government, on increasing funding for the university and non-payment of accumulated Earned Academic Allowances (EAA).
“Another major components of the 2021 MoA which the government reneged is the provision of N50 million to the university per annum. Almost four years after signing the agreement, the state government is yet to pay a kobo for that purpose,” Dr Jauro said.
The ASUU chairman lamented that non-payment of the EAA for over five years made the staff to continue to suffer difficulties in discharging excess workload despite the poor working conditions.
Dr Jauro added that despite signing into law the N30,000 minimum wage by Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya in 2020, the university has failed to implement it leaving workers with the outdated salary table of 2012.
He stated that there are also issues of non-payment of arrears of promotion for four years and non-implementation of the 35 percent and 25 percent wage award for academic staff.
The union said the failure of the government to honour the MoA left the union with no option but to embark on the indefinite strike action.
He appealed to students and parents to understand its constraints, urging them to prevail on the government to do the needful.
It was learnt that this is the first time academic staff in GSU are embarking on internal strike, since its inception 20 years ago.
In an efforts to avert the strike, the state government had last week approved N265 million to the institution for the payment of promotion arrears.
However, Dr Jauro said they are yet to receive the payment, as they only read about the approval on the pages of newspapers.