The leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday met with top officials of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) in Abuja with a view to resolving the issues surrounding the five months old strike embarked upon by the lecturers.
Whereas, the outcome of the closed-door meeting was not disclosed to journalists, the striking lecturers yesterday defiled the Federal Government’s December 9 ultimatum of either resuming class works or get sacked, by staying back at home and not resuming work.
The ASUU president, Comrade Nasir Isa Fagge and five others arrived the NLC Labour House at about 10.30 am for the meeting with the NLC President, Comrade Omar Abdulwahid and a number of other Labour leaders.
As the ASUU President and his team arrived the venue of the meeting, our correspondent took him up on the nature of the meeting and when the strike is likely to be called off but the Fagge said his team was just on a visit to the Labour leader.
After the end of the meeting which lasted about two hours, Fagge still declined comments on its outcome. Subsequent efforts to reach him via telephone calls and text messages for comment did not yield result as his phones were switched off.
Fagge had earlier blamed the Federal Government for the lingering crises as he said “Our expectation, was that at the time we wrote letter to the President, through the Minister of Education, either the President or the Minister, if he has the full mandate of the President, should have responded to our letter by telling us that, ‘these conditions, we will need to come and look at them again.’ Or these conditions are conditions acceptable to us, you can come so that we can draft the memorandum of understanding and we can sign it to enable you suspend the strike. But that didn’t happen. Instead of responding to our letter, the Minister of Education was on air insulting ASUU, telling the public that we are making new demands that are outrageous ’.
A visit by Daily Newswatch to the University of Lagos (UNILAG) confirmed that the striking lecturers are bent to continue the strike until their demands are met as no lecturer was found on campus and their offices were under lock and key.
Equally, the University of Jos chapter of the union has said none of its members will resume work until the government assume its responsibility.
The Chairperson of the chapter, David Jangkam, in an interview with Daily Newswatch said Federal Government cannot intimidate them to resume work. “We are waiting for the Federal Government to sack us, we will not resume work until government implements the 2009 agreement with ASUU”, he said.
In the same vein, the December 9 deadline seemed to have had no effect on lecturers of the Federal University of Technology (FUT) Minna as they failed to resume work yesterday.
The register opened by the university management remained unsigned as at the close of work yesterday.
Government’s directive also appeared to have met brick walls at the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, where ASUU members have remained adamant. Public Relations officer, (PRO) of the institution, Mrs Rosemary Waku, told Daily Newswatch in a telephone interview that none of the lecturers had signed the register of attendance.
Mrs Waku said the refusal of the lecturers to report for duty may have made the students to continue to stay at home. She said the proposed meeting of the senate was put off because some of the lecturers were supposed to participate in the meeting.
Chairman of the local chapter of ASUU, Dr Celestine Aguoru, told our correspondent that the members would not sign any document until the Federal Government does what it was supposed to do. Aguoru said the lecturers would not succumb to threat of sack and declared that the strike would continue until the government decides to relieve them of their appointments.
Like the aforementioned federal universities, Bayero University, Kano, (BUK), also failed to comply with the directive, as students and lecturers were conspicuously absent at both the new and old campuses of the university.
When our correspondent visited both campuses yesterday, he observed that there were no lecturers or students in sight, as everywhere was deserted, following the on-going strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Meanwhile, authorities of University of Ibadan have declared January 04, 2014, for the resumption of the institution for full academic and allied activities, attributing the development to the directives of the Committee of Pro-Chancellors (CPC) of Federal Universities and the National Universities Commission (CPC).
An Official Bulletin signed by the Registrar and Secretary to the institution’s Governing Council Mr. Olujimi Olukoya, explained that the re-opening became imperative in view of the consideration of all matters relating to the on-going Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike, at its recent meeting.
However, the Chairman of ASUU, Moddibo Adama University chapter, Yola, Dr. Augustine Anthony, has blamed government for the prolonged industrial action embarked upon by his colleagues.
Augustine who spoke to some reporters yesterday in Yola, over prolonging strike, revealed that research carried out by ASUU as a body has indicated that non of the family members of President Goodluck Jonathan’s ministers attend any public university in the country, saying that is why those in government care less about what happens in the institutions.
Source: Daily Newswatch
No comments:
Post a Comment