Division In ASUU Over Move To Call Off Strike

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.
[Vanguard]