By PAMELA EBOH, Awka

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has expressed regret over what it described as deceitful disposition of the federal Government at the expense on Nigerian students.

Addressing journalists in Awka on Tuesday, the Owerri Zonal Coordinator of the body, Comrade Uzo Onyebinama, said the body was not ready to call off the strike until all the agreements it had with the government were renegotiated and signed, despite the negative implications on its members.

He stressed that government’s continued delay in nipping the issue in the bud may lead to other forces taking over the struggle from ASUU.

Onyebinama said: “NANS has given an ultimatum for this strike to end so as to return to school, we don’t know their next line of action. But one thing we know is that government doesn’t have all the time to implement these issues we raised.

“We’ve resolved that until these issues are resolved, and being implemented, we’re not going to go back to classroom because it’s bothered on our salaries and other condition of service.

“Yes, our salaries have not been paid since February, they’ve managed to pay some till June, while some are being owed nine months, some three because of the confusion called IPPIS, we’re still willing to continue in the struggle.”

The union accused the federal government of feeding the Nigerian populace with lies over its non-implementation of 2009 FG-ASUU agreement which has led to the lingering strike by the union dismissing it claim of reaching an agreement with it on virtually all the issues that necessitated the strike embarked upon since February.

The coordinator called for the support of both students and parents to prevail on the federal government to do the needful to save the university education from total collapse.

While describing the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) as diversionary by the government to overshadow the issues at stake, Onyebinama insisted they would not be cowed by such distractions.

He added: “We said we don’t want further Memorandum of Actions, we want implementations because we’ve had series of them without implementations which had led us to this merry go round of strikes.”

Roll call of the meeting include leadership of the body from Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State University, Owerri, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike.

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