The Academic Staff Union of Universities of the Niger Delta University, Ammassoma, Bayelsa state, has declared an indefinite strike action over the refusal of the government to honour agreements reached with the union.
Declaring the strike action on Tuesday after a meeting at its secretariat in Amassoma, the ASUU NDU chairperson, Dr. Lucky Bebeteidoh, said “going forward from today, the 10th of December 2024, all academic staff of Niger Delta University are on strike.”
Bebeteidoh said for the lecturers to shelve the industrial action, items one to four on the memorandum of understanding signed between the Bayelsa State Government and ASUU must be implemented.
He said they are implementation of the 25/35 percent salary increment and the payment of arrears from January 2023 and consequential adjustment and implementation of the N80,000 new minimum wage.
Other demands are implementation of annual steps increment and arrears from 2018, payment of promotion arrears from 2018 and provision of on campus residential accommodation for staff.
But the union said lecturers would still carry on with their research work and community service while the industrial action continued, “but the teaching aspect is held back,” the chairperson said.
Giving a background of their interface with the state government, Bebeteidoh said “We engaged with the Bayelsa State Government in May. We wrote another letter in July, wrote another letter in August, informing the state government that the 25/35 percent salary increment, were also a part of it and that the state government should start the implementation, but didn’t receive one acknowledgement from them.
“We wrote to seek audience with the Visitor, no response from the side of the government. In August, congress met and took a decision to process for an industrial action.
“And as we today, a visitation team was sent to NDU. October 30th, they were here. They met with the state government and that meeting led to the signing of an MoU with the state government.”
Bebeteidoh said the state government agreed to start the implementation of the agreement by November 30th this year.
According to him, since the state government reneged on its side of the agreement, ASUU NDU communicated the trustees and principal officers of the union who gave the greenlight for the industrial action.
