Fresh Polytechnic crisis looms as lecturers prepare for strike Wednesday

Members of the Academic Staff Union of
Polytechnics have said they will down their
tools if by Wednesday, the Nigerian
Government refuses to implement an agreement
it entered with them over four years ago.
The lecturers in 2014 suspended an almost one-
year long strike after promises were made by
then newly appointed Education Minister,
Ibrahim Shekarau, that their demands would be
met.
The lecturers said none of the items on their list
of demands have been attended to.
Some of their demands include what they
termed the "continued discrimination" against
polytechnic graduates in the public service and
the labour market in Nigeria, including the non-
release of white paper on visitation to Federal
polytechnics.
They are also protesting the non-
implementation of CONTISS 15 migration for
the lower cadres and its arrears as from 2009
when salary structure was approved.
They also decried the non-establishment of A
National Polytechnic Commission and the
"wrongful recognition" of the National Board
for Technical Education as the regulatory body
for polytechnics
The lecturers also want more funding for
polytechnics, appointment of competent people
into governing councils and adequate funding
of state polytechnics by their various owners.
In another vein, the ASUP President, Chibuzor
Asomugha, told reporters, after an emergency
national executive council meeting that the
governing councils of Federal Polytechnic Oko,
in Anambra State and that of Ado Ekiti in Ekiti
State should be dissolved for creating
avoidable problems in their institutions.