The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has issued
new conditions to the Federal Government’s negotiating
team for it to end its five-month strike.
Our correspondent gathered that the union held its
executive meeting Sunday but kept mute after the
meeting.
Before now, the leadership of the union had engaged in a
13-hour marathon meeting with the government
delegation led by President Goodluck Jonathan himself in
Abuja between Monday and Tuesday.
ASUU, at the meeting, promised to take the message to
its members across the country. The meeting was to
collate feedback from its various chapters on the fresh
offer by the Federal Government.
Though it was generally perceived that both ASUU and
the Federal Government achieved breakthrough in
negotiation for the first time after the lengthy meeting
with the President, it was learnt that the lecturers might
not be in a hurry to go back to class.
Investigation revealed that the silence by ASUU may be
to keep to the assurance it gave to President Jonathan
that the body would first brief him on the outcome of its
NEC meeting before making it public.
Naija247news authoritatively gathered that meeting the
president gain was to strengthen the previous agreement
with the president.
A source in the meeting told our correspondent that the
union has came up with some new dimensions to ensure
that strike ends in the history of Nigerian universities.
The source threatened that the lecturers would not
resume work if their salary was not released.
It was gathered that Federal Government has refused to
pay the lawmakers since the strike began in July 1.
The source said: “What we agreed on in summary was
that the Federal Government must pay all our outstanding
salary from June to November. We also agreed that the
implementation of the new agreement must begin this
year.
“With that, the FG must release the earlier promised
N130 billion for both the allowances and university
restructuring fund. Since the minister of finance had
assured in the previous meeting that the fund were ready,
we hope that will no longer delay resumption.”
Earlier, members of the Academic Staff Union of
Universities have given the Federal Government certain
conditions to be met before the union could call off its
four-month old strike.
Part of this condition, it was learnt, is that all federal
parastatals in charge of fund, labour, and education must
sign the agreement purportedly reached between its
leadership and the Federal Government on Tuesday.
A prominent member of the union, who craved anonymity
because he was not authorised to speak on behalf of the
body, noted that doing this would give the association
the confidence that “the Federal Government knows what
it is doing when it signed the agreement.”
In the recent development, ASUU maintained sealed lips
on the outcome of its National Executive Committee
meeting held in, Kano, over the weekend.
ASUU had penultimate Tuesday cancelled its earlier
scheduled NEC meeting in Kano due to the death of its
former president, Prof. Festus Iyayi.
Iyayi died when the vehicle he was travelling with other
national officers from Benin to Kano got involved in a
crash with the convoy of Kogi Governor, Idris Wada.
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