The hope that the four month old strike by the
Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, may be
called off this week, following President Goodluck
Jonathan’s intervention last week, may be dashed
as the 61 chapters of the union are divided over
the move to call off the strike.
President Jonathan held a meeting with the
leadership of ASUU last week, where he made some
offers which ASUU was expected to take to their
members for deliberation with the hope that it will
pacify them into resuming academic activities this
week.
Congresses of the 61 chapters of the union were
therefore held, yesterday, while the National
Executive Council, NEC, meeting will hold tomorrow
in one of the northern universities.
The outcome of the union’s congresses indicated
that there was disagreement on the need to call off
the strike.
Vanguard gathered that while some ASUU chapters
were ready to suspend the strike in the light of the
President’s intervention, others insisted that they
will continue the strike due to what they described
as their distrust for the government.
It was learnt that while the University of Lagos,
UNILAG, resolved to suspend the strike, chapters
like the University of Ibadan, UI; University of
Benin, UNIBEN; University of Calabar, UNICAL;
University of Jos, UNIJOS and the Lagos State
University, LASU, said the strike must continue,
arguing that the Federal Government could not be
trusted to fulfil its promise of injecting over N1.1
trillion to universities in the next five years.
A source at University of Lagos, UNILAG, chapter,
told Vanguard that the debate at its congress was
on whether to end or suspend the strike.
He said: “We eventually moved to suspend the
strike and end it only when the President pumps in
the first N220 billion into the universities in January
2014.
“Although this is not totally in line with the 2009
agreement, we feel that we can suspend the strike
out of respect for the President. We just want to
give him the benefit of doubt, and hope that he
fulfills his promise.”
At Lagos State University, LASU, one of the
executive members of ASUU, who spoke to
Vanguard on condition of anonymity, affirmed that
though the chapter was not averse to the proposal
of President Jonathan, but the consensus at its
congress was that ASUU should not just be a
monitoring body when the fund is finally injected.
He said: “After our congress, which lasted several
hours, it was the resolve of our chapter that the
strike should not be called off, because we are
uncomfortable with the fact that the Federal
Government has said that ASUU will just be a
monitoring officer, while the Minister of Education
will be the implementation officer.
“We argued that we must be part and parcel of how
the funds are managed and what they have
earmarked for within the period of five years.
“How can we know if the Ministry of Education and
other authorities are prudently spending the funds
for the proposed projects if ASUU is not part of the
management committee? So, our position is that
the strike should not be called off.”
Members of ASUU at the University of Jos, UNIJOS
voted in favour of the continuation of the strike.
194 members voted for the strike to continue
while 80 voted for a suspension.
Those who spoke in favour of the strike to continue
wondered why the strike should be called off on
the basis of pleas and verbal promises by the
president, when the government is allegedly
reputed for not to honoring agreements.
They were said to have argued that the suffering by
students and members in the last four months
would be a waste if something concrete did not
come out of the strike to improve the situation in
universities.
It was further gathered that those for the
suspension of the strike spoke passionately on the
need to consider the impact of the strike on
students and the gesture from President Jonathan,
who met personally with ASUU leaders and pleaded
with them to suspend the strike.
A few of them were quoted as saying it was better
to suspend the strike and find other ways of
pursuing their demands so as not to lose the
support of the people.
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