After eight months of sitting at home, Nigerian varsity students are finally set to resume school as the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) announced its decision to suspend its eight-month-old industrial action, in the early hours of Friday.
The New Diplomat gathered that the union agreed to suspended its debilitating strike during a meeting of the body’s National Executive Council which was held at the ASUU secretariat in Abuja.
Though the union was yet to make an official announcement as of press time, it is expected that a press statement will be released any moment from now.
The decision comes a week after the Court of Appeal had ordered ASUU to suspend the industrial action before its appeal against the ruling ordering lecturers to resume work can be heard.
ASUU had been on strike since February 14 this year. ASUU embarked on the strike to press home its demands on renegotiating the ASUU/FG 2009 agreement and the sustainability of the university autonomy by deploying UTAS to replace the government’s IPPIS.
Other demands include the release of the reports of visitation panels to federal universities, distortions in salary payment, funding for revitalisation of public universities, earned academic allowance, poor funding of state universities and promotion arrears.
More to come soon…