Strike: ASUU NEC Converges On Abuja Today, To Meet FG

On Monday night, the National Executive Council of the striking Academic Staff of Universities will meet.

According to union sources, NEC members will meet with Federal Government officials later this week after the conference.

After a two-day meeting at the University of Lagos, Akoka, ASUU declared a nationwide four-week roll-over strike last week Monday.

Despite meeting with the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, on October 14, 2021, on issues such as funding for revitalisation of public universities, earned academic allowances, University Transparency Accountability Solution; promotion arrears, renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement, and inconsistencies in Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System Payment, the union said it had no choice but to go on strike.

According to investigations, several members of the ASUU NEC had arrived in Abuja on Sunday afternoon in preparation for the meeting.

Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, the national chairman of ASUU, told our correspondent that if the government was responsive, there would be no need for the strike to persist for weeks.

“It is just a meeting; they are inviting us for a meeting within the week. They will tell us why they called.  I don’t know what they plan to tell us, we will meet them within the week,” he said.

He told Nigerians to “Appeal to the government to implement the agreement we signed with them. The strike can be called off any day, it is in the government’s hand if they want it to last for a week, two weeks, one month, a year, or more. It is the government that will decide when they want the strike to end. Our position is that they should agree and implement what they signed with us. If they are responsive, it doesn’t need to last for weeks. We have given them one month to react.”

Also, the ASUU Chairman, Federal University, Dutsin-ma, Dr Jibrin Shagari, in an interview with The PUNCH, confirmed that the union’s NEC members will converge on Abuja on Monday night.

Shagari said, “Yes, I can confirm that our national officers will be in Abuja on Monday night where they will meet and later meet the Federal Government.”

ASUU rules out confidence in FG as meeting holds

Meanwhile, union members still do not believe that the government is ready to meet their demands.

The Chairman, ASUU, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Dr Gbenga Adeleye, insisted that the union would not call off the strike if their demands were not met.

He said, “We are on strike. If they don’t do what they are supposed to do, we are not going to call off the strike.

“There is nothing about whether we are confident or not confident.

 “It is for them to meet our demands, if they are not meeting our demands, we are not calling off the strike.”

 Similarly, the Chairman of ASUU at the University of Ibadan, Prof. Ayo Akinwole, in a statement on Sunday, said, so far, those in charge of the  Ministry of Education had displayed gross incompetence and lack the interests of the masses.

Akinwole described the FG as a slave merchant, who only listened  and implemented  he destructive policy recommendations of the International Monetary fund  and World Bank against the larger interest of Nigerians.

He said, “The Federal Government lacks integrity. It is sad. The government cannot be trusted any longer. We have been on the same salary for 13 years and it is even shameful to show anyone your payslip.

“When compared to the work we do, we have sacrificed for Nigeria to the detriment of our wellbeing and this is already dampening the morale of our people.

“Federal Government should sign the renegotiated agreement, implement it, roll out UTAS, pay unpaid earned academic allowances, commit more funds into the revitalisation of universities.

 “Parents should impress it on the government to sign the new welfare package for our members. If we fail to fight for our rights, the slave merchants in government will continue to trade with our future and future of the children of the masses.”