ASUU may rollover strike, holds crucial NEC meeting

THE leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) may roll over the ongoing two months of warning strike following the inability of the Federal Government to meet most of the demands of the Union.

A credible source from the ongoing National Executive Council meeting of ASUU holding in Abuja hinted that the strike would be extended to give the Federal Government enough time to respond to the demands of the lecturers.

By this Friday, the two months roll over industrial action would expire without the Federal Government meeting their demands.

A member of the NEC told Nigerian Tribune that the strike might  be extended with the submissions given so far at the meeting.

“We are still meeting. But from the reports given so far, we have no reason to suspend the strike. The Federal Government is not serious,” the NEC member said.

ASUU which is the umbrella body of the nation’s public universities’ lecturers had earlier declared one-month warning strike and later rolled the action over for another two months on March 14 to give the Federal Government more time.

But up till this moment and despite several appeals from stakeholders, especially the students and their parents as well as concerned groups and individuals to both parties to resolve their differences to enable normalcy to return to schools, the story has not changed.

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Impeccable sources from ASUU’s side and on anonymity told Nigerian Tribune on Sunday evening that ASUU has determined to roll over the strike at the expiration of the warning strike on Friday.

The sources noted that though the Minister of Education, Mr Adamu Adamu, had scheduled a meeting with the ASUU leadership for next week, there was nothing ASUU could do than to roll the ongoing strike over to enable government to have more time to prepare. 

The sources who refused to disclose the number of weeks or months the proposed extension would take said the minister ought to have taken the same step far before now and not scheduling meetings after the expiration of the warning strike.

The sources added that ASUU would neither be fooled this time around nor yielded to pressure from the stakeholders as it determined to sustain the strike until the Federal Government  does the needful.

The sources explained that all their demands remain the same as contained in their Memorandum of Action (MoA) signed by the two parties in December 2020.

The MoA, according to sources, bother on funding for revitalization of public universities (both federal and state), renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement, deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) against IPPIS,  Earned Academic Allowances, among others.

“So, we are in for real action this time around and it is for the sake of Nigeria having functional public universities,” one of the sources concluded.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, had on Friday stated that the Federal Government and ASUU would resume negotiation this week.

Ngige noted that the multiple industrial disputes in the education sector could have been averted if the unions in the education sector took advantage of his open-door policy like the health unions.

He said, “We don’t have to cry over spilt milk. Let us look at your issues to see the ones we can handle immediately, the ones we can do in the medium term and the ones we can do in the long term.

“There are certain ones that are over and above me that are not in my hands to do.

“My job is to prepare an agreement after conciliation on what you have agreed with your employers, the Federal Ministry of Education, put timelines and monitor them, to see whether the results will be there,” he said.