ASUU suspends 9 month old strike

Reprieve came Wednesday for students of Nigerian universities as  lecturers called off their 9 month old strike over funding of the ivory towers and plan by the government to include them in the unified payment system known as Integrated Payroll Payment Information System (IPPIS) .
The president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) the umbrella body of university teachers in Nigeria , Professor Biodun Ogunyomi who announced the suspension of the strike at a news conference in Abuja however said the strike was suspended conditionally with the hope that the government would fulfil it’s part of the bargain.
“should the government renege on the promise ,ASUU will resume strike without notice’, he said
The suspension of the strike came after several months of negotiations between ASUU and governent officials led by the Labour minister, Dr Chris Ngige.
Fielding questions after the announcement, ASUU President, Professor Ogunyomi said the agreement reached with the government was “elastic with a monitoring mechanism in the understanding reached”
” Not all promises have been actualised, but we are given government the benefit of the doubt …We are hoping that government will not renege, should the governent reneged, our members are not tired of going back on strike”
he said.
On the salary payment system, Ogunyomi said the issue has been resolved in principle.
IPPIS is no longer an issue for us in ASUU, we have proposed UTAS,( University Transparency and Accountability Solution) which they ( governent)have agreed, in principle.

Tuesdays meeting which ran into early hours of Wednesday came a month after the government offered a cumulative 64 billion Naira to the lecturers to address earned academic allowances and revitalisation of universities.
The suspended strike action by ASUU is the longest in more than a decade. With the suspension of the strike, ASUU said it is left for council of each University to announce resumption date for their students.