‘ASUU Strike Could Have Ended Penultimate Friday’

The Academic Staff Union of Universities have blasted the supervising minister of education, Nyesom Wike over his order that the lecturers should resume academic session before December 4.
The Supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, had in a news conference in Abuja on Thursday directed all federal university vice-chancellors   to reopen their institutions for academic and allied activities. The Federal Government also threatened that lecturers who fail to resume on or before December 4, would lose their jobs.
He said, “Vice-chancellors should ensure that staffs who resume for work are provided with the enabling environment for academic and allied activities. Any academic employee who fails to resume on or before   December 4, 2013 automatically ceases to be an employee of the institution.
“Vice-chancellors are also directed to advertise vacancies (internal and external) in their institutions. The National Universities Commission is hereby directed to monitor the compliance of these directives by the various institutions.”
The ministers directive, which he claimed was in the interest of the country, came few days after  ASUU in a letter after its NEC  meeting on November 22,  requested the following:
- that the N200bn agreed upon as 2013 revitalisation fund for public universities should  be deposited with the CBN  and disbursed to the benefiting universities within two weeks;
-  that the renegotiation of the 2009 Agreement in 2014 be included in the final document as agreed at the discussion with the President;
- that a non-victimisation clause, which is normally captured in all interactions of this nature, be included in the final document; and
- that a new memorandum of understanding shall be validly endorsed; signed by a representative of government, preferably the Attorney-General of the Federation, and a representative of ASUU, with the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress as a witness.

But, according to the lecturers, the actions of the supervising minister were evidences that the Federal Government was insincere in transforming the educational sector.
ASUU chairman of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Prof. Akinola Adegbola, who spoke to our correspondent, noted that the “doubtful” nature of the FG made members of the union insist on “concretisation” of the agreement.
Adegbola told our correspondent that members of the union had decided to end the strike since the penultimate Friday, but for lack of trust in the federal government negotiating team, they needed to extend the strike for proper documentation.
He said, “I think it shows better the insecurity of the minister. We don’t know whether he is speaking for himself or he is speaking for the government. If he is speaking for the government, we assume it to be gross insincerity of the government.

“From the discussion it is assumed that if the government can implement the agreement for 50 per cent, we are ok. Nobody is necessarily demanding that it should be 100 per cent. But now we are saying that we want the agreement to be documented with a programme of execution.source