The National Executive Council (NEC) of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is meeting to review its six-month-old strike.
The crucial NEC parley, which reportedly started at 4pm, was
expected to end at midnight.
The union commenced the nationwide industrial action on
February 14, 2022 and has extended it several times due to its inability to
reach substantial agreement with the federal government.
On August 1, 2022, ASUU announced another extension of the
strike by four weeks.
We gathered that parents and students are keeping their ears
open on the outcome of the striking lecturers.
On social media where many have aired their opinions, they
appealed to the university teachers to give peace a chance, resume dialogue
with the Federal Government, and return to classrooms.
However, a final decision on whether to call off the strike
or extend it is expected to be announced this morning.
Various ASUU branches have held their congresses during the
week and the majority voted for another rollover of an indefinite strike.
The renegotiation of the 2009 agreement and the replacement
of IPPIS with UTAS are the major demands of the striking lecturers.
Meanwhile, the union has lamented that prior to his
appointment, the minister of education Adamu Adamu had been in support of
ASUU’s agitations/actions, including strikes.
The union recalled that Adamu was writing in the lecturers’
favour and urging them to uphold their actions and hold the government to
account until the right thing was done.
Speaking yesterday at the University of Jos (UNIJOS),
Plateau State, ASUU zonal coordinator, Bauchi Zone, Prof Lawan Abubakar,
lamented that Adamu had become the minister of education he had turned against
ASUU and misleading and instigating other ministers and the public against the
union.
They also urged Nigerians to hold Adamu Adamu, the labour
and employment minister, Chris Ngige and the federal government responsible for
the strike.
Abubakar said, “You may recall that when asked to comment on
ASUU’s submission to President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, January 9, 2020,
Adamu Adamu said he totally
agreed with what
ASUU presented, upon which note
President Buhari handed
him ASUU’s document
and directed him to come up with a proposal for an
amicable solution.
“For the same Adamu Adamu to now lead his colleagues, the
other ministers, to misrepresent facts and mislead the good people of Nigeria
against ASUU is rather unfortunate. It
is the highest level of unpatriotic
disservice a minister would do to his
nation, particularly a sector like Education which is the backbone of the
development of any country.
“If this is the way to end the ASUU strike, ASUU-Bauchi Zone
is taking exception to it and assuring Adamu Adamu that he is wrong; he has
rather succeeded in undermining the future of Nigerian youths and Nigeria. If
it would take him six (6) months to only come up with this deceit as a solution
to the strike, we then have the right to ask whether he really was serious with
Education or stage-managing it.
“It has now come to bare that the minister had all along
been deceiving everybody since 2017, as far as ASUU’s agitations in the tenure
of this government are concerned. We want the general public to know that the
federal government through Adamu Adamu did not approach ASUU with any
reasonable and acceptable solutions to the issues in contention that led to the
current strike,” Abubakar said.
He said the claim of the minister that ASUU had accepted the
offers from Government was a blatant lie aimed at scuttling what the Prof Nimi
Briggs’ Committee put to resolve the matter, thereby undermining the sincerity
of the committee in resolving the issues.
He stressed that for the minister to also say that ASUU gave
him the condition of payment of their withheld salaries before the strike would
be called off was, also, another falsehood.
He explained that if the immediate past accountant -general
of the federation, Ahmed Idris, alone, could be alleged to have
carted away N170 billon
among other looters yet undiscovered, then there
is money, and the government
cannot claim that it does not have money to fund Education, but rather it
is not its priority.
Abubakar said another complicit minister in the negotiations
was Ngige who abandoned the negotiations, and then later began pursuing a
presidential bid where he went and ‘gave’ a N100 million in purchasing
nomination form, only for him to later withdraw and forfeited the money.
“We are now hearing stories of termites eating up documents
related to the expenditure of over N17 billion in NSITF (National Insurance
Trust Fund), a parastatal in the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment
where Ngige holds sway as minister. If Ngige would abandon talks with ASUU for
his dead-on-arrival presidential bid, one would not expect the minister of
education to do the worst to the ministry of his charge,” he added.