ASUU Strike is Over - will FG keep to its Promise?

FIVE month and 17 days after it embarked on nationwide strike, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Tuesday,  suspended the strike and directed its branches across the country to resume work forthwith.

This came after careful appraisal of the various reports, with particular reference to the resolutions signed by the union with the Federal Government, as contained in the document signed on December 11 and witnessed by the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar.

The union announced the suspension of the strike through its president, Dr Nasir Isa Fagge, at a press conference held at the Bosso campus of the Federal University of Technology, Minna (FUTMinna), on Tuesday.

The National Executive Council (NEC) of the union had commenced a meeting on Monday, which lasted till the early hours of Tuesday,  at the Gidan Kwanu main campus of FUTMinna.

Fagge had, last week, told journalists that the union would consult with its NEC and would, within one week, intimate Nigerians of its decision on the strike.

According to Fagge, the union dedicated the outcome of the struggle and its future to the late Professor Festus Iyayi, a past president of the union and an intellectual who lost his life in the struggle for freedom, justice and well-being of the underprivileged.

“It is our hope that government will honour these resolutions as signed. ASUU hopes that the common position between government and ASUU that nobody shall be victimised in any way whatsoever for his/her role in the process leading to these resolutions will be implemented.

“Although ASUU would have preferred to undertake  the renegotiation of the 2009 agreement in the second quarter of 2014, our union was persuaded to shift the date till the third quarter and we agreed, as a gesture of goodwill, and expect the implementation monitoring committee to conclude within a short time, the verification of the level of implementation of the earned academic allowances. Also, the government should, as agreed, provide fund for the payment of the outstanding balance,” he said.

The ASUU president stressed based on the resolutions reached ingood faith between the Federal Government and the union on December 11, 2013,  ASUU members had undertaken to go back to the classrooms,  laboratories, among others, to do their best for their students, parents and the country as a whole.

“We are going back to rekindle the motivation and aspiration in our members to strive to encourage our students to excel. We are returning to classes with the hope that parents will take actual interests in their children’s condition of learning and living.

“We expect parents to actively demand better funding, better living conditions, better laboratories and better freedom for their children, in order to get all-round education that will enable them to compete with the rest of the world,” Fagge said.

He acknowledged the supports received from the students during the strike, despite attempts to use divisive tactics to weaken the resolve of the union by some people, adding that the attempts were defeated by the students.

FG promises to implement resolutions
THE Federal Government has expressed its commitment to implementing all the items of the resolutions reached with ASUU  as the union called off its strike on Tuesday.

Supervising Minister of Education, Mr Nyesom Wike, while reacting to the suspension of the over five-month-old industrial action, on Tuesday, reiterated the commitment of the Federal Government to the revival of Nigerian universities.

In a statement by his special assistant on media, Mr Simeon Nwakaudu, Wike said the resolution to invest N1.3trillion in the revitalisation of infrastructure of all public universities in the country in the next six years would transform the institutions to international centres of excellence.

tribune