Strike: ASUU IS READY TO NEGOTIATE WITH FG – Prof. Ogunyemi
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) says it is ready to commence negotiations with the federal government to resolve the ongoing strike.
ASUU President, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, disclosed this to newsmen on Wednesday, November 14, in Abuja.
Ogunyemi said that meeting with the Federal Government delegation has been scheduled for Thursday, one o’clock at the instance of the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu.
According to him, the N200 billion released by the Federal Government in September 2018 is not an issue but that N200 billion ought to have been released in October 2017 as part of the 2013 agreement.
“It would be recalled that the Federal Government had agreed to inject N1.3 trillion to fund universities at N 220 billion yearly for five years.
“If the government fails to fund public universities the situation on campuses may degenerate, worse than the already poor quality teaching and learning environment,’’ he said.
The ASUU president, however, insisted that the ‘No work no pay’ threats by the government would not affect the lecturers as the industrial action was legal in Nigerian labour law and international conventions, which Nigeria is a signatory.
He added that ASUU is hoping that the meeting scheduled for Thursday will be used to resolve the issues at stake and not to continue to raise an alarm that past administrations made bogus agreements with the universities.
It will be recalled that the striking lecturers had resumed its strike on November 5 to press home its demands.
Some of the demands are: that the Federal Government should nominate another chairman of the government renegotiating team of the 2009 ASUU/Federal Government Agreement. ASUU had rejected Dr Wale Babalakin led renegotiating team.
Other demands are non-payment of Earned allowance, funding of revitalization of the Nigerian universities, implementation of needs assessment report, poor funding of state universities, among others.
Meanwhile, ASUU had on on Sunday, November 4, announced the commencement of its an indefinite strike action following the inability of the federal government to respond to their demands.
ASUU said its strike would be total as all federal and state varsities would join the strike.
The union accused the federal government of not implementing the Memorandum of Action signed with it. The national president of ASUU, Biodun Ogunyemi, said they have waited patiently for the federal government to act, all to no avail.
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