Nigerian university teachers start one-week strike
Nigerian university teachers on Monday embarked on a week-long strike demanding the reinstatement of 49 of their colleagues dismissed seven years ago, union officials said.
The head of the Academic Staff Union of Universities Nigeria (ASUU) Abdullahi Sule-Kano told reporters in Kano that the lecturers from the University of Ilorin in central Nigeria were dismissed in 2001 for taking part in a nationwide strike by university dons over pay and funding of the country's state-owned universities.
"We are embarking on a seven-day warning strike for the second time to draw the attention of the federal government to the agreement we reached in 2007 on recalling the sacked lecturers," said Sule-Kano, who teaches in another northern Nigerin city, Sokoto.
The June 2007 deal ended a three-month strike on that occasion, but ASUU says the government failed to respect its side of the bargain.
This is the second lecturers' strike over the non-reinstatement of the 49 in the space of two months.