By SIMON EBEGBULEM

BENIN CITY-THE Benin zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Monday, said it will embark on a week-long warning strike over alleged insincerity and refusal of the Federal Government to fully implement the agreement it signed with the union in 2009.

ASUU, in a statement by its zonal chairman, Dr. Sunny Ighalo, Dr Anthony Monye-Emina, (Chairman, UNIBEN ASUU), Dr Emmanuel Mordi (Chairman, ASUU DELSU) and Dr Beke Sese (Chairman, ASUU NDU), lamented that efforts by the union to convince the government to implement the agreement had been rebuffed.

It said the week-long warning strike will commence on September 25.

The statement noted that the vital aspects of the agreement in contention included the non-passage of the law on 70 years retirement for academics in professorial cadre, earned allowances and funding, stressing that “government had deliberately engaged in unholy act of promoting instability and industrial crisis in our universities as exemplified in this case.”

ASUU said: “Having consulted and made several peaceful moves to get government to do the right thing without success, our union had painfully taken the option of strike as a way out. Consequently, to compel a recalcitrant, insincere and unrepentant government to do the right thing, we had resolved to embark upon one week warning strike to compel government to honour an agreement it entered into and signed.”

The union urged parents and students “to hold government responsible for the disruption in academic activities in our universities. The warning strike will be the first step in the industrial battle after which NEC will reconvene to review the strike and take further action.”