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 agree
ent. 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.
