Fight Your Own Battles – ASUU Warns NAAT, Others

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, on Sunday warned the National Association of Academic Technologists, NAAT, or any other union against its plan to use it as bait to get anything from the Federal Government.

ASUU called on other unions to fight their battles their own ways.

The Chairman of ASUU in the University of Lagos, Dele Ashiru, gave this warning while reacting to the claims by NAAT expressing displeasure with the sharing arrangement of the N40 billion released by the Federal Government as Earned Academic Allowances for university workers.

“Who pays the Earned Academic Allowances, is it ASUU or the government? In the first instance, ASUU presented its demands to the government and we made our case and based on that, the government released some money.”

“The money was not even up to what we demanded but we made the necessary concession in the interest of all.”

“However, the National Universities Commission, NUC, also saw the need to carry other unions along and made the request on their behalf.”

“Nobody should use ASUU as a bait to get anything from the government. We do fight our own battles and we want other unions to also fight their battles themselves,” he said.

In a related development, a category of university workers under the aegis of the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) has issued a 14-day warning to the federal government after which it will proceed on strike.

The workers’ union in a statement on Saturday by its National President, Ibeji Nwokoma while speaking with journalists in Abuja said the government needs to be specific on the percentage of earned allowance that is due to the union.

He stated that allocating 75% of the N40billion earned allowance approved by the federal government to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and just blanketly giving 25% to other unions without clear cut sharing formula is not acceptable.