AsUU Strike Latest: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.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 09:30:48 +0000
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