President Goodluck Jonathan and Fagge
The
Academic Staff Union of Universities has said it will not suspend its
ongoing strike until the four months salaries owed its members are
paid.
The union also wants the immediate
implementation of the N1.2tn offer by the Federal Government to public
universities, starting with the release of N100bn this year. The balance
of N1.1tn is to be spread over five years from 2014.
These were some of the resolutions
reached by members of the National Executive Council of the union who
converged on Kano on Friday to deliberate on whether to call off the
over four- month-old industrial action or not.
A source, who was privy to the
resolutions reached during the President Goodluck Jonathan – ASUU
leadership meeting three weeks ago, told The PUNCH on Sunday,
that the fresh demands were some of the issues to be tabled before
Jonathan by the leadership during their next meeting. A date for the
meeting is yet to be fixed.
According to the source, a strong
commitment to two demands, among other pending issues, must be obtained
from the President before the industrial action will be called off by
the union.
He said, “The issue now is on trust and
we do not want a situation where promises will not be kept. The
authorities have failed us in the past and we do not want a repeat of
that.
”That was why we decided at the NEC
meeting that the government should pay us the arrears of salaries being
owed us since we started the strike on July1 before the strike can be
called off. The salaries should not be paid piecemeal.
“We also insist that the Federal
Government should start the implementation of the offer made to us when
we met the President some weeks ago.
“For instance, the N100bn he (Jonathan)
agreed to inject into the university system in 2013 should be released
to the universities immediately. So, we decided that before the
strike could be called off, these two conditions and others must be met
not by promises but by real action.”
The NEC members, who met behind closed
doors at the Bayero University, Kano, were said to have reviewed the
reports of the various university congresses on the strike.
Our source, who did not want his name
in print, added that the death of a former National President of ASUU,
Prof. Festus Iyayi, was discussed at the NEC meeting.
Iyayi, a University of Benin lecturer,
died in an auto accident involving the convoy of the Kogi State
Governor, Idris Wada and an ASUU vehicle, on his way to Kano for the
meeting.The union’s National Welfare Officer, Dr. Ngozi Ilo, was
injured.
Our source said the accident “almost led to the discontinuation of the ongoing negotiation with the Federal Government.
He added, “Some members expressed the
belief that he (Iyayi) was killed by the government and therefore argued
that the ongoing negotiation should be called off. Tempers rose but
some members argued that the President should be respected because he
had created the record of being the first Nigerian leader to meet
with the leadership of ASUU on the issue of making the nation’s
university system better. They also argued that students and parents
should be considered.”
It was also learnt that after arguments
for and against, about 60 per cent of the members of the NEC voted in
favour of the discontinuation of the strike while the remaining 40
per cent voted no.
But it was gathered that the NEC
members unanimously agreed that before the strike could be called off,
the leadership should ask the government to pay the four-month salary
arrears being owed university teachers while the offer made by the
government should be implemented immediately.
A key component of the agreement reached
by both ASUU and the Federal Government when the President led the
government team was that government would inject N1.2tn into public
universities.
The government also agreed that the
N1.2tn would be domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria to show its
commitment to the agreement.
The money is expected to be released on
quarterly basis to the universities so that there won’t be any problem
about implementing the deal.
The National Universities Commission and
the Trade Union Congress will be the joint guarantors of the agreement
while the Minister of Education will be the implementing officer. The
government also agreed to revamp public universities by ensuring that
all the issues that always lead to strike were dealt with once and for
all.
A majority of the chapters of the union
had agreed to the suspension of the strike following the fresh
commitment the leadership of ASUU obtained from the government.
ASUU National President, Dr. Nassir
Fagge, did not pick the several calls made to his telephone line by one
of our correspondents on Sunday to confirm the fresh demands.
The University of Lagos chapter ASUU
Chairman, Dr. Karo Ogbinaka, and his counterpart in the Lagos State
University, Dr. Adekunle Idris, also refused to divulge information on
the outcome of the NEC meeting.
ASUU had embarked on the strike to
protest against the failure of the government to implement the
agreement they signed in 2009.
The pact largely centered on better
funding of the universities, a declaration of a state of emergency in
tertiary education, better wages and payment of earned allowances to
lecturers.
It had suspended the NEC meeting penultimate week following Iyayi’s death.
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