The management of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, has extended the ongoing two-week mid-semester break by additional four weeks.
Following the extension, the university has asked the students not to resume on Monday, April 11, as earlier scheduled but in the first week of May.
The university had on March 26, 2022, announced-semester two-week mid-semester break that began on March 28.
The institution’s spokesperson, Abiodun Olarewaju, later confirmedthat it was related to the ongoing strike by the university-based unions.
Both the academic and non-academic workers across Nigerian universities are currently on strike nationwide.
While the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is now over 50 days, the two-week warning strike by the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union of Allied and Educational Institutions (NASU) is expected to end this weekend, without a possible resolution of the conflict in sight.
A statement by the university’s registrar, Magaret Omosule, on Thursday, noted that the extension was influenced by the current grounding of activities by the campus-based unions.
The statement read in part: “With full realisation of the import and impact of the industrial actions embarked upon by the various unions within the Nigerian university system, the university management has decided to elongate the mid-semester break by four (4) weeks.
“Students are therefore directed to continue with the mid-semester break for four (4) weeks beginning from Monday, 11th April, 2022.”
Unions’ demands
The two major demands of ASUU are the adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to replace the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) for the payment of staff salaries in the university system and the renegotiation of the 2009 federal government-ASUU agreement on the working conditions of Nigerian academics.
Others include the payment of earned academic allowances, revitalisation fund for universities, and distortions in the payment of salaries, funding of state universities, and the release of white papers on the visitation panels sent to the universities.
Meanwhile, the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of SSANU and NASU listed the demands to include the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement, payment of earned allowances, usurpation of non-academic career positions by vice-chancellors, inclusion of university staff school into the university community, non-payment of minimum wage arrears, and funding of state universities.
The national vice president of SSANU, Abdussobur Salaam, said that the government has only paid less than N8 billion of the N30 billion it agreed upon.
“The memorandum of understanding we had was that the renegotiation will be concluded within six weeks. And that was as far back as February, 2021. And if you count six weeks from that time we will be talking about sometime in May or maybe April. But here we are, a year later, we have not even been invited for one meeting despite our reminders.” he had said in an interview.
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