The Federal University of Lafia (FULafia) chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has decried the poor state of infrastructure in public universities in the country.

Dr Sunday Orinya, chairman of the union in the institution, made the call during a peaceful protest it organised on Wednesday in Lafia.

Mr Orinya, who explained that the protest was in compliance with the directive of its National Executive Council (NEC), called on the federal government to honour all agreements reached with the union.

“NEC directed all branches to sensitise and mobilise her members for possible strike action over the silence of the federal government on the lingering issues affecting public universities.

“The looming industrial action is a resolution reached by ASUU at its emergency NEC meeting held recently at the University of Abuja,” he said.

The chairman particularly called on the federal government to implement the renegotiated agreement reached with the union in 2009.

“For the avoidance of doubt, there was a joint renegotiation committee of the 2009 agreement comprising representatives of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), and the ASUU team, which produced the first, second and third draft agreements.

“The first draft was coordinated by the Emeritus Prof. Munzali Jibril, who took over the chairmanship of the joint renegotiating committee from Dr Wale Babalakin.

“The draft was submitted in May 2021 but was rejected by the government a year later, but the second and current draft came to be after the government’s team was reconstituted in April 2022, chaired by emeritus Prof. Nimi Briggs.

“The Briggs-led committee commenced work with extensive consultations; they met heads of relevant units in the MDAs and shared a written submission of the findings with ASUU.

“We were assured that the new committee had a clear mandate to review the Munzali-led committee’s report through a collective bargaining process in tandem with the principles of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), but to no avail,” he explained

The chairman appealed to the federal government to immediately implement the agreemnt in order to forestall another round of industrial action that would distort academic activities in public universities.

Some of the demands as contained in the agreement include a new salary package and conditions of service, funding for the revitalisation of universities, payment of backlog of earned academic allowances and accumulated promotion arrears.

Other demands of the union are, payment of withheld salaries, adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Solutions (UTAS) with concurrent discontinuance of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), among others.

(NAN)