Indications have emerged that the
Academic Staff Union of
Universities may call off the over
four-month-old strike on Thursday.
Barring a last-minute change, the
National Executive Committee of
ASUU will meet on Wednesday
night to consider the position of
the congresses of the over 50
public universities on the offer
made by the Federal government to
revamp the institutions.
The union met with a Federal
Government team led by President
Goodluck Jonathan last Tuesday in
Abuja.
The ASUU leadership, after
briefing the zonal coordinators on
the offer, had directed the local
branches to organise congress
meetings between Friday last week
and Tuesday (tomorrow).
This is to enable all the lecturers
to make input into the action the
union would take after its NEC
meeting on Thursday.
However, feelers from most
universities that had organised
their congresses revealed that
ASUU would suspend the strike
after the Thursday NEC meeting.
In some universities, including the
Obafemi Awolowo University and
the Lagos State University that
have scheduled their congress
meetings for Monday (today),
union leaders and lecturers
expressed hope that the strike
would end this week.
Also, some top officials of the
union in some of the nine zones of
ASUU said even though they were
not happy with the plan by the
government to inject N220bn yearly
into the public universities for the
next five years, they were pleased
that a commitment had been
obtained by the union.
Though the Ibadan Zonal
Coordinator of ASUU, Dr. Nasir
Adesola, confirmed that the NEC
meeting would hold on Wednesday,
he did not say whether the strike
would be called off or not.
“Yes, the NEC will hold on
Wednesday evening but ASUU has
a process which we are going to
follow. NEC reserves the right to
call off the strike after due
consultation with members and
this is why congresses are being
called in all the chapters of the
union. Please, wait till after the
congress,” he told one of our
correspondents on the telephone.
But another source said, “Our NEC
meeting will hold between
Wednesday night and Thursday.
Our chapters have started holding
meetings to discuss the Federal
Government’s offer. This is to allow
input from all the lecturers. We
have to carry them along to avoid
disunity since there are moves by
some elements to infiltrate us.”
Another source told one of our
correspondents that some members
had expressed mixed feelings
about the Federal Government’s
new offer based on its refusal to
honour past agreements.
“The radicals among us are
sceptical about this latest offer.
They do not believe that
government will respect the
agreement. Their view is that
government only wants to deceive
the union to call off the strike
before it will jettison it.”
A top official of the union, who
confirmed the fears, told one of
our correspondents that although
members’ opinions at the zonal
congresses were divided over the
government’s offer, the majority
still decided to give the
government the benefit of the
doubt.
He also said that the majority
opinion was that the review of the
agreement which was supposed to
hold this year should be
postponed till next year in the
interest of peace.
The official added, “Members were
persuaded because President
Goodluck Jonathan personally met
with the union. They felt since the
President was involved in the
negotiation this time around, the
government would not say that it
was arm-twisted to make the offer.
“This is the problem we are having
with the 2009 agreement. By now
we should be talking about a
review but we are still having
troubles with implementation.
“Although feelers across the zones
are that we should call off the
strike, we are going to put down
the government offer in black and
white and make it public so that
nobody accuses us tomorrow of
asking for too much.”
Some universities are expected to
hold their congresses on Monday
(today) to discuss the outcome of
the zonal congresses held at nine
centres across the country last
week.
A source at the meeting between
the government and ASUU told
one of our correspondents that
the government after a long
debate agreed to inject N220bn
yearly for the next five years
beginning from 2014.
He had said, “The meeting should
be the longest that we have ever
had on this crisis but I can tell
you that both parties were frank
all through the discussions. The
parties also showed commitment
towards ending the crisis. The
President in particular showed that
he was serious about ending the
strike and that was why he offered
to release over N1tn to the
universities in the next five years.
“The money will be released on a
yearly basis at N220bn per annum
beginning from 2014. For the
outgoing year, the Federal
Government will only release
N100bn and this has been
processed.
“In order to show commitment to
this deal, the money will be kept
at the Central Bank of Nigeria and
will be released on a quarterly
basis to the universities. So, there
won’t be any problem about
funding the deal.”
The source added that the
National Universities Commission
and the Trade Union Congress
would be joint guarantors of the
new agreement while the Minister
of Education would be the
implementation officer.
He said that the government also
agreed, among other things, to
revamp the public universities by
ensuring that all the issues that
always lead to strike were dealt
with once and for all.
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