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.




http://www.punchng.com/news/ASUU-set-to-suspend-strike-this-week/

Ok.

Alright, let's hear the real news now....

ASUU set to do this, ASUU set to do that
ASUU may do this, ASUU may do that.

We don tire

Tell them!

Na them sabi!.