By OUR REPORTERS
The radical elements of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) continued to exert their powerful influence on the union as their stance – that the four-week warning strike called by ASUU on 14 February, 2022 should roll over into more weeks of work to rule as earlier reported by The Dream Daily Newspaper – prevailed last night, Sunday 13 March, 2022 when the union’s National Executive Council (NEC) met to review the warning strike, which lapsed on the day
Consequently, ASUU extended the warning strike for a longer, eight-week period, according to a statement issued by President, ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke.
Prof. Osodeke stated that ASUU took the extension decision primarily because the Federal Government has failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action within the four-week warning strike.
He added that the NEC meeting resolved to give the government eight weeks to address all the issues “in concrete terms” so that an indefinite strike would be averted in the university system.
Prof. Osodeke wrote: “NEC acknowledged the intervention efforts, in various ways, by patriots and friends of genuine national development (students, parents, journalists, trade union leaders, civil society activists etc.) to expeditiously resolve the crisis which Govemment’s disposition had allowed to fester. However, ASUU, as a union of intellectuals, has historic obligations to make governments honour agreements.
“NEC, having taken reports on the engagements of the Trustees and Principal Officers with the Government, concluded that Government had failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action within the four-week roll-over strike period and resolved that the strike be rolled over for another eight weeks to give Government more time to address all the issues in concrete terms so that our students will resume as soon as possible.
“The roll-over strike shall commence by 12.0l a.m. on Monday, 14th March 2022.”
The Dream Daily Newspaper learnt that the decision to elongate the strike by eight weeks might not be unconnected in part with the step taken by the Federal Government to set up a panel to review one of the bones of contention which led to the strike – the 2009 agreement which government signed with ASUU but which the Federal Government has blatantly failed to implement as agreed with the union.
Recall that while setting up the panel, the Federal Government had stated that the committee would work for six weeks. Those in the know within ASUU, who pleaded to remain anonymous for personal reasons, told The Dream Daily Newspaper that the eight-week extension of the warning strike was to give the committee time to execute its assignment and leave some room too for ASUU National and branches nationwide to consider the outcome of the review.
One of our sources stated: “You know that there is a committee reviewing the 2009 Agreement now. Our thinking is that since government said the review would last for six weeks, we have to give the committee the period to do its work. However, we cannot also stop the warning strike only to start another one if the review does not address the issues satisfactorily. Then there are other demands too. It will be untidy to stop the warning strike and call students back only to start another strike in about six weeks’ time. So the issue is let’s give the review panel time. Let’s see what they will bring back to ASUU while we roll over the strike.”
Asked to give concerned students and their parents a general outline of how the current face-off with the Federal Government could look like after the eight weeks, another university teacher who also pleaded anonymity said: “Everything depends on the Federal Government. This strike is not ASUU’s doing. The government must do the needful, which is to meet our demand as a union. If the review does not satisfy our members nationwide, they would say so at their branch meetings and communicate their decision to (ASUU) NEC. If they are satisfied they will also tell us. And then the scenarios are obvious. If we are not satisfied, then even the eight weeks you are fretting about will become indefinite strike. So students and parents and you their sympathizer should talk to the government to do the needful. Meet ASUU’s demands and we go back to teaching or this strikes continues (indefinitely).”
Leave a Reply