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General News of Saturday, 16 January 2021

Source: punchng.com

Why we are embarking on strike, say Plateau varsity lecturers

File photo: Plateau State University File photo: Plateau State University

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, Plateau State University chapter, has declared an indefinite strike.

The union’s chairman, Dr Bentse  Pamson, told Saturday PUNCH in Jos on Friday that the decision to embark on the strike was reached during a meeting held earlier in the day.

Pamson said, “We have just held our congress where our members unanimously agreed to proceed on strike immediately.

“The strike is total because we have already secured the approval of NEC to embark on a local strike action at Plateau State University after the ongoing national strike is over if the state government fails to meet our demands”

Giving reasons for the strike, the ASUU chairman said, “We have a total of seven unresolved issues which we have been calling the attention of the state government to without success.

“For instance, if you come to the university, you will not see any capital project being funded by the state government, except the ones being undertaken through TETFUND. This is totally strange and unacceptable.

“Not only that, the state government has refused to reconstitute the governing council after the tenure of the last officials expired, leaving the university without direction.

“There is also the issue of unpaid earned academic allowance spreading up to eight academic sessions, totalling about N215m leaving our members to suffer.

“We also have the problem of underfunding of the institution with the monthly subvention of about N90m which is grossly inadequate as against about N200m needed monthly by the university to run effectively.

“Apart from that, we have a situation where there is no special fund set aside for training and development of the academic staff of the institution to augment their efforts and those who wish to partner with the institution.

“Besides, the university environment has been turned to grazing land, thereby constituting a serious security threat to staff members and students mainly because the institution is not fenced.”

Pamson said there were instances where hoodlums broke into the hostels, raped the students and subjected the lecturers to all forms of harassment.

He said ASUU members in the institution have been enduring but they could no longer continue like that without anything being done to address the issues.