Why ASUU extended strike by eight weeks

By Orowo Victoria Ojieh

Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has explained why it extended its ongoing strike by two months. ASUU reached the decision on Sunday after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held at the University of Abuja secretariat of the union following the expiration of its one month warning strike. It said the eight-week period was to allow the Federal Government time to respond to their requests.

ASUU began a one-month warning strike on February 14 in response to the Federal Government’s failure to implement the Memorandum of Action (MoA) it signed with the Union in December 2020 on funding for revitalization Man arrested for allegedly sitting father’s exam A Kenyan man has been arrested by Busia County for sitting for an English exam in his father’s stead in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE).

The suspect, George Barasa Makokha was apprehended by the exam centre manager who immediately reported him to the police. Josephat Basoga Makokha, the suspect’s father, had registered at “Our Lady of Mercy Secondary School” as a private candidate, The Trumpet gathered.

According to a police report on the incident, the exam Center Manager at Our Lady of Mercy Secondary School reported that there was a man impersonating a candidate and writing the English Paper 1 exam. The police report states, “On receiving the report, the county security team led by the DCC and SCPC rushed to the center and found the suspect namely George Barasa Makokha a Luhya male adult and who upon interrogation disclosed that he had been sent by a candidate of Index Number 35960101026 registered for Busia sub-county private namely Josephat Basoga Makokha and who is the suspect’s father”.

“The suspect was escorted to the station and placed in custody to be charged with the offence of intent to impersonate and not being the registered candidate in contravention of section 30(c) of the KNEC Act”. Upon interrogation, Barasa disclosed that he had been sent by his father to sit for him in his examination.

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The suspect is being held at Busia police station. of public universities ( Federal and States), deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), and other conditions the two parties had agreed to in the past.

In a statement by ASUU’s president, Emmanuel Osodeke, “NEC, having taken reports on the engagements of the Trustees and Principal Officers with the Government, concluded that Government had failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) within the fourweek roll—over strike period and resolved that the strike be rolled over for another eight (8) weeks to give Government more time to address all the issues in concrete terms so that our students will resume as soon as possible”.

“The roll-over strike shall commence by 12.01 am on Monday, 14 March 2022.” The union blamed its decision on the hypocrisy of the government since it commenced the one month warning strike. According to the lecturers, a lot of meetings with government officials resulted in nothing meaningful.

The union’s latest decision was influenced by the nonchalant attitude of the government and the need to allow the federal government to have enough time to reach a solid agreement with the union in order to avoid further strikes in the future.

ASUU also acknowledges the efforts of those that intervened in various ways, being its students, parents, journalists, civil society activists etc.