The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has announced it is prepared to embark on a nationwide strike, which a union leader described as the "mother of all strikes," if the federal government fails to implement the demands from their 2009 agreement.
Speaking at a news conference in Calabar, the chairman of the University of Calabar (Unical) chapter, Dr. Peter Ubi, stated that the union's national body would declare the industrial action after a meeting scheduled for August 28.
Dr. Ubi expressed frustration over the government's persistent failure to honor promises made to improve the standard of university education.
He outlined the union's key demands, which include the re-negotiation of the 2009 agreement, sustainable funding for Nigerian universities, revitalisation of facilities, and the payment of outstanding wage and promotion arrears.
"Government, in its characteristics, has paid deaf ears to our demands and has constantly pushed our union to embark on strike," Dr. Ubi said.
He noted that ASUU has exhausted various strategies for resolving the conflict and is now being forced to take industrial action to press for the necessary changes.
In a related development, the Unical chapter called for an extension of the government's moratorium on establishing new federal universities to also include state and private institutions.
The union argues that this measure would help curtail the "proliferation of universities without standard."
The Federal Government recently imposed a seven-year freeze on the creation of new federal universities, polytechnics, and colleges of education, citing a drop in academic quality and overstretched resources.
Despite this, the Federal Executive Council recently approved the establishment of nine new universities.
