ACADEMIC activities at the state and federal government-owned universities across the country have been paralysed as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Monday, began an indefinite strike.

The National President of the union, Professor Ukachukwu Awuzie, who briefed newsmen along with other members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) in Akure, Ondo State, said the strike was total and indefinite.

He said the lecturers decided to commence the strike, following “the continued negligence, failure and refusal of government to sign the agreement reached between ASUU and the Gamaliel Onosode-led government negotiating teams.”

Awuzie stated that “the otherwise avoidable strike (action) was to compel government to take the path of honour for once and sign the agreement with the union reached after more than two years of painstaking and scientific negotiations.”

The ASUU president said the union had embarked on a two-week warning strike, which ended on May 31, 2009, to enable the government to sign the agreement.

He regretted that despite the warning strike, the situation had remained unchanged as the Federal Government was yet to sign the agreement. According to him, the agitation by the union in the last two years had been on improvement of the Nigerian university system towards reversing the brain drain that had deprived the country of a causal agency in national development.

This, he said, included the development and sustenance of a large pool of scholars, whose intellectual-scientific production would reposition Nigeria for greater responsibilities in national development.

Awuzie said the negotiating teams had agreed that the university system needed immediate and massive financial intervention, adding that it was agreed that a minimum of 26 per cent of the annual budget of the state and the federal governments should be allocated to education.

He said with this level of funding, the country could halt the growing inability of children of the underprivileged to get education.

Expressing regret over the inability of government to sign the agreement, he said: “Since December 2008, when the negotiation between the FGN-ASUU negotiating teams was completed, ASUU, despite having persuaded its members to exercise patience for over two years, once again, resolved to do its best to avoid a crisis. But government did not treat ASUU’s patience and restraint with sincerity.

“In March, we were first told that the agreement would be signed before the end of April. At the end of April we were told it would be signed on May 7. On May 7, we were told the Permanent Secretary was not in the country.”

The union said the Federal Government had, on many occasions, deceived it to come for meetings to sign the agreement with such meeting is turning out to be mere gimmicks.

This, the union said, led to the warning strike embarked upon by the union in May, adding that instead of signing the agreement, government had introduced foreign issues to the collective bargaining process.

He said: “Government set up a technical committee on an agreement without reference to the negotiating team; a ministerial committee was set up with terms of reference that would entirely nullify the essence of the negotiated agreement.

“There were even attempts to unilaterally change the agreement on the conditions of service. There was the false propaganda in the newspapers declaring N78 billion as the requirement of ASUU agreement.

“Our members have come to the conclusion that over two and a half years of patience is enough. They feel betrayed, duped and do not want to suffer any more psychological or moral trauma.”

The union said although the strike was indefinite, it could be as short as possible, if the government respected and signed the agreement reached with it.

Meanwhile, as ASUU began an indefinite strike on Monday, the Senate has berated the executive, saying that it was toying with the education sector.

It stated that the sector was so crucial to the foundation of the country that it could not be toyed with, urging the lecturers to exercise some restraint once more while they (senators) talk to the executive to find a way to meeting their aspiration based on the available resources.

Speaking through the chairman of the Senate Committee on Information, Senator Ayogu Eze on Monday, the Senate assured that when the Senate resumes today, the education committee would be involved “once and for all to see how we can resolve it.”

Senator Eze, who briefed journalists, said that: “But our take in the Senate is that the educational sector is so crucial to the foundation of this country that we cannot toy with it and we want to urge the lecturers to exercise some restraint once more, while we talk to the executive to find a way to meet their aspiration based on the resources available to it.”

According to him, the executive and the officials of the ASUU should be able to sit down at a roundtable to deliberate on how the agreement would be liquidated, believing that it “is proper and responsible that the agreements that have been reached with ASUU, should be honoured if they have actually been signed, as they are claiming.”

Senate berates Government?!

Who is Senate and who is Government?

You people should stop typing okpata online.

The Senate cannot even berate the Executive because it is the Senate that approves the budget which the Executive would work with. So if the Senate had approved a budget in which 26% went to education, the Executive would have gone ahead to implement. I don't understand what these ones are saying O! In fact, I believe that it is the Executive that should berate the Senate.