The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Jos chapter, which commenced a “total, comprehensive and indefinite” strike action Thursday, has provided reasons for its action that has paralysed the entire academic activities in the institution. Unijos branch Chairman of ASUU, Dr. Christopher Piwune, while addressing the press on Saturday, said the university management was deliberately shying away from its responsibilities and has severally reneged on the promises it had repeatedly made to the union to rectify many irregularities surrounding payment of entitlements meant for its members. Piwune, who was flanked by the secretary of the union, Dr. Diran Ademiju-Bepo, recalled that “the trouble started shortly after the six-month ASUU nation-wide strike in June 2013; the federal government released money for staff’s welfare and NEEDS assessment, but this money was misappropriated by the university.” He said the university went ahead to disburse the fund arbitrarily to academic and non- academic staff with about 300 members of his union not getting paid. ASUU also noted that the university has refused to pay postgraduate entitlements to its members that have supervised Masters and PhD students with over 100 applications still waiting to be attended to, adding that all effort made in this regard has not yielded desired results. The union also lamented the salary disparity between its members and academic staff of other federal universities, adding that Unijos management keeps complaining that there was no money. He said members became tired with deductions left, right and centre and decided to commence strike. In its reaction, the management of the university said it got the letter informing it of the indefinite strike, but added that ASUU did not state the reason it was embarking on the strike action. The management, in a statement signed by the Registrar of the university, Mr. Jilli-Dandam, however agreed that the lecturers have been dialoguing on two issues with it; the disbursement of Earned Academic Allowance and the payment of Postgraduate Supervision Allowance.

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