The state administration has been presented with the terms that will persuade the striking teachers of Taraba State University (TSU), who went on indefinite strike on Thursday, to resume lessons.

Speaking in Jalingo, the capital of Taraba State, on Friday, Comr. Joshua Mbave, chairman of the Taraba State University chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), enumerated the requirements.

The academic staff had previously accused the state administration of excluding them from the newly imposed N70,000 minimum salary in the state, which was paid starting in November 2024, before they went on strike.

Additionally, the nonpayment of academic earned allowance and salary arrears, the absence of the University Council to promote academics, and the nonimplementation of a pension plan for the university workers as well as breakdown of talks over their demands.

However, in order to facilitate further discussions about their demands, Taraba State Governor Agbu Kefas, through his Advisor on Media and Digital Communications, Hon. Emmanuel Bello, asked the lecturers to resume their classes.

“Dr. Agbu Kefas, the head of Taraba State University (TSU), has urged the striking lecturers to put down their weapons and go back to the negotiating table,” Bello said.

But in an interview with our correspondent on Friday, Mbave, the chairman of the ASUU branch, claimed that no university lecturer is prepared to return to class until all outstanding matters brought before the state government have been settled.

We are despised for our involvement as TSU lecturers. This university was founded in 2022, but as of right now, our teachers have no pension plan, the government owes us months’ worth of unpaid salaries and earned academic allowances, and there is no council to coordinate our promotions as lecturers.

“We were invited by the state’s Commissioner for Education to declare the strike yesterday, Thursday. When we arrived at her office, she informed us that the governor had given us the option to either return to work right away and he would engage us on Tuesday or continue our strike indefinitely.

We informed her that because there were two choices, we had decided to stay on strike and that was our position. We won’t resume until our demands are fulfilled,” Mbave said.

In order to continue their academic pursuits, the institution’s students, who were already in the middle of their semester exams prior to the indefinite strike action, begged Governor Kefas to expedite talks with the lecturers to put a stop to the strike.