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.

beautifully dne. Good news

I hope so.... can't wait to get back to school

Sch dis year don commot 4 my calender,till next year


Na who 1 go sch 41month? Me? I laf in Spanish

Y cant Jonathan jst sign whateva dey ask him to sign n end dis madness once n for all??

We still hoping sha

Still telling Stroies nd More Stroies...........................