The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has extended its warning strike by two months.

The decision to extend the strike was taken at the union’s National Executive Council, NEC meeting held in Abuja on Sunday night.

The union has not made any public statement regarding the outcome of the meeting, but a source told Vanguard that members resolved at the meeting held in an undisclosed location that the industrial action should be extended for two more months.

The outcome of the meeting, the source said, was being drafted and would be released soon.

The meeting was held in Abuja on Sunday to decide whether to declare an indefinite strike as its one-month warning strike ends today.

While the meeting was ongoing, a senior NEC member of the union told Daily Trust that the university lecturers might declare an indefinite strike as there was no breakthrough in the negotiations with the Nigerian Government regarding the union’s demands.

The demands include the revitalisation of public universities, earned academic allowances, University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) promotion arrears, renegotiation of 2009 ASUU-FGN agreement and alleged inconsistencies in Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system (IPPIS) payments.

‘’We are holding this NEC meeting to decide whether to declare an indefinite strike after the end of our one-month warning strike.
“But most likely, we may embark on an indefinite strike,’’ the official said.

ASUU President, Emmanuel Victor Osodeke, said, “Of particular concern to us is the statement credited to both the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy and the Director-General, NITDA, to the effect that UTAS has failed the integrity test.

“Let us put it on record that an integrity test was carried out by NITDA on 10th August, 2021 at the NUC where relevant government agencies and all the end-users in the university system were present.

‘’At the end of the exercise, all, without exception, expressed satisfaction with UTAS as a suitable solution for salary payment in our universities. This was attested to by the report coming from NITDA then to the effect that UTAS scored 85% in User Acceptance Test (UAT).

“However, in a curious twist of submission, the NITDA Technical Team, after conducting a comprehensive functionality test, came out to say that out of 687 test cases, 529 cases were satisfactory, 156 cases queried and 2 cases were cautioned.

‘’Taking this report on its face value, the percentage score is 77%. The question that arises from this is: can 77% in any known fair evaluation system be categorized as failure? Suffice it to say here that some observations and questions were raised by NITDA to which UTAS technical team has to provide clarification.’’