Niger Delta University to join looming Strike

The decision to start the procedure was prompted by the Bayelsa State Government’s repeated refusals to provide an audience to Governor Douye Diri, the institution’s guest, over the issues facing students and the university as a whole. The Niger Delta University (NDU) chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has decided to go on strike. The ASUU chapter, through its chairman, Comrade Oyinkepreye Lucky Bebeteidoh, claims that the decision to start the process was prompted by the Bayelsa State Government’s repeated refusal to grant an audience to the institution’s guest, Governor Douye Diri, regarding the issues impacting both members and the university as a whole.

Speaking to reporters at the ASUU secretariat on the NDU campus on Wilberforce Island in Ammassoma, Bebeteidoh said that the union’s Congress had decided to start the process, which would result in the immediate resume of the union’s suspended industrial action. ASUU claims that the main points of contention between ASUU and the Bayelsa State Government are the immediate implementation of the N70,000 minimum wage for members, the payment of arrears from January 2023 to the present, and the implementation of the 35% and 25% salary increments for members.

He said, “The implementation of the annual step increment with immediate effect and the payment of the arrears from 2018 to date.

“Payment of the arrears from 2018 to date and the provision of on-campus residential accommodation for staff to ease the burden, stress and risk of commuting to work from Yenagoa on daily basis.

residential accommodation for staff to ease the burden, stress and risk of commuting to work from Yenagoa on daily basis.

“Implementation of the annual review of the monthly subvention as contained in the MoA earlier signed on the 1st of September, 2022. Employment of academic staff, especially those below the rank of senior lecturer (graduate assistants, lecturer 11, and Lecturer 1)

“This will provide funding for the University’s accreditation needs and bridge the academic manpower gap in almost all departments at Niger Delta University.” According to Comrade Oyinkepreye Lucky Bebeteidoh, “no single project has been undertaken in the university” since the current administration’s beginning. He declared, “As you are aware, the university is best characterized as a TETFund university because the only ways to grow people and physical infrastructure are through TETFund and other federal interventions. The proof is obvious.

“Sadly, efforts are also being made to remove this only existing infrastructural and human resources development lifeline of the Niger Delta University, under the guise of distributing TETFund interventions to all the Universities in the State when it is clearly indicated in the TETFund guidelines that only two universities can be funded alternatively.” He continued by saying that following proper ratification by the ASUU national leadership, the strike action process goes into immediate effect. “We’ve been apprehensive about starting our suspended strike action again. But it’s now quite evident that industrial action is the only way that succeeding governments would respond,” he stated.