Afeez Hanafi, Deborah Tolu-Kolawole, Godfrey George, Armstrong Bakam, Hindi Livinus, and Justin Tyopuusu
12 February 2022
The National Executive Committee of the Academic Staff Union of Universities will start a two-day meeting at the University of Lagos, Akoka, today, to settle the association’s choice on a looming strike.
ASUU will settle on an official choice on the strike – to be reached by casting a ballot – known toward the finish of the gathering on Sunday, Saturday PUNCH has learned.
The association had communicated complaints about the disappointment of the Federal Government to satisfy a portion of the arrangements it made as far back as 2009. ASUU had on November 15, 2021, given the Federal Government a three-week final proposal over the inability to fulfill the needs.
The teachers took steps to leave on one more round of modern activity following the affirmed “government’s faithlessness” in the execution of the Memorandum of Action it endorsed with the association, prompting the suspension of the 2020 strike activity.
After the association’s National Executive Council meeting at the University of Abuja on November 13 and 14, ASUU President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, deplored that notwithstanding meeting with the Minister of Labor and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, on October 14, 2021, on issues, including financing for the revitalization of state-funded colleges, acquired scholarly recompenses, University Transparency Accountability Solution, advancement overdue debts, renegotiation of 2009 ASUU-FGN arrangement, and the irregularities in Integrated Payroll and Personnel data framework installment, none of its requests had been met.
Following the danger, the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, guaranteed that the association would be paid.
Half a month later, ASUU suspended the arranged strike as N22.1bn acquired recompenses was paid to teachers in government colleges.
Closely following the association’s recharged fomentations, the co-directors of the National Inter-strict Council, the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Abubakar III, and the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Dr. Samson Ayokunle, visited the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), last month over the absence of execution of the Memorandum of Understanding the public authority endorsed with ASUU in 2009 and others.
At the gathering, Buhari said the public authority stayed focused on satisfying the guarantees made to ASUU. The President additionally expressed that he had commanded Ngige, the Minister of Education, Adamu, and his (Buhari’s) Chief of Staff, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, to investigate the requests of the association.
However, Osodeke in a meeting with one of our reporters demanded that the Federal Government couldn’t be relied upon regardless of the guarantee of the President.
The association, therefore, announced Monday, February 9, 2022, as a talk-free day to prepare its individuals in front of what is depicted as the longest strike ever.
A few parts of the association embraced the mandate and had held a few congresses where they advised people in general to consider the public authority capable of assuming the association chooses to leave protesting.
The ultimate choice on the approaching strike will have arrived at this end of the week as ASUU NEC meets from February 12 (today) and February 13, at UNILAG.
One more NEC let Saturday PUNCH know that the choice on strike would be put to casting a ballot and every one of the individuals present would cast a ballot either possibly in support of it.
He said, “The leader of our association isn’t the one to settle on the strike. Likewise, none of the officials is relied upon to singularly settle on it. The issues in question are to be postponed and bantered at the gathering.
“Then, at that point, all the NEC individuals will cast a ballot either possibly in support of the strike. Anything we settle on Sunday would frame the following line of activity.”
Inquired as to whether there is sufficient justification for the teachers to take to the streets, the source replied in the confirmed.
“Indeed, we have even begun the strike sooner than now. Yet, as guardians, we have been trusting that the public authority will yield the ground and satisfy the arrangements it willfully entered with us,” the source added.
Endeavors to arrive at Adamu demonstrated failed as he neither picked calls nor answered to an instant message shipped off his telephone number.
Be that as it may, Nwajiuba declined to remark on the association’s gathering, where a definitive choice on the approaching strike would be taken.
In the interim, Ngige has vowed to venture into the question between the Federal Government and ASUU on the off chance that the Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commission neglect to determine the issue.
The pastor told one of our journalists on Friday that his service could play out a reconciliatory job as it isn’t the business of the speakers.
He said, “The Ministry of Education is their boss and we have given over the vital apparatuses to them. The significant issue with ASUU presently is the organization of UTAS which is under the domain of NITDA which is under the Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy. The NUC additionally plays its own part to play.
“My job is to play a reconciliatory official. On the off chance that their bosses and the NUC neglect to accommodate them, I step in as the reconciliatory official. It’s not more than that. Be that as it may, I realize their bosses are tracking down ways of settling these issues.”
FG underhanded, uncaring toward individuals’ predicament – ATBU ASUU
The ASUU part of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, has kept up with that the Federal Government is uncaring toward the predicament of their individuals.
This is similar as the association blamed the public authority for being “underhanded” on the issue of the Earned Academic Allowances of its individuals clarifying that main a section installment was made through the public authority professed to have paid completely.
ASUU Chairperson, ATBU branch, Dr. Ibrahim Inuwa, expressed this at a public interview on Friday at the association’s secretariat in Bauchi while responding to an inquiry on whether or not the association was coldhearted toward the new request by the President that the arranged strike ought to be racked.
He said, “I disagree that we are heartless. On the off chance that you take a gander at the pattern of occasions among ASUU and the Federal Government, ASUU doesn’t set out protesting without giving any earlier notification. We had a progression of congresses, campaigning, and interviews with different partners.
“The Federal Government has been inhumane toward the difficulties in the state-funded colleges. As far as we might be concerned, we take a gander at the call by the public authority that we ought to hold that strike as a ploy to keep stalling since it is self-evident. The government officials have begun pounding the drums for the following general decisions and we know their tricks.
“They are simply being underhanded on the grounds that they pay a few peanuts out of the remittances and they go on air to say they’ve settled our Earned Academic Allowances.”
Inuwa said the ASUU part of the establishment had held three congresses and settled that the public secretariat should continue the suspended strike.
“Today (Friday), during our congress, individuals merged on that stand that whenever the strike is announced, they are completely in help. They coordinated: ‘Go to the NEC meeting and let them know that ATBU, Bauchi is prepared (for the strike),” he added.
Understudies back ASUU endless strike
The ASUU Chairman, Moddibo Adama University, Yola, El-Maude Gambo, said the association met with the understudies’ association heads of the organization on Wednesday on the association’s disappointments.
He said, “As an association, we are ready to battle on until the public authority does the needful. We are glad to be the last association remaining against the oppression and exemption of force shown in Nigeria. Our own is an association of savvy people who accept that quality schooling is a right of each Nigerian.”
The President of the Student Union Government of MOU, Jerry Dickson, said the association was on the side of ASUU’s arranged strike.
He added that the understudies’ help for ASUU “is absolute and resolute” inasmuch as its fomentations would assist with handling the difficulties standing up to the college framework.
He said understudies were against the significant expense of the college degree that puts the offspring of the poor in a tough spot.
He said, “We are of the assessment that if truly ASUU is genuinely serious about what they are talking about leaving protesting to address the decay in the college framework, then, at that point, we don’t care either way if the strike will most recent 10 years. Model is Ghana, our West African neighbor, which went on a long strike that last a couple of years to resolve the issues in that country’s college instructive framework. Assuming the Ghanaians did that, for what reason would we be able to do that here too?”
‘Our individuals burnt out on Ishaku’s bombed guarantees’
In the interim, the Taraba State University part of ASUU on Friday said its individuals were burnt out on marking memoranda and endless unfulfilled guarantees by Governor Darius Ishaku.
The association said beginning around 2009, they had been marking memoranda of comprehension with the state government yet it never regarded the arrangements.
The executive of the association at the college, Dr. Samuel Shiikaa, while tending to columnists after a quiet dissent on the grounds on Friday, approached the public authority to do the needful to deflect modern emergency.
He expressed, “Our individuals are burnt out on the reminders and need the public authority to respect its consent to pay benefits and guarantee ideal advancement of its individuals.
“We have presented every one of the records for the execution of the benefits plot for our individuals as concurred with the public authority since last year and the public authority has not done anything about it.”
PTA asks Buhari to turn away strike
The National President, Parent-Teacher Association of Nigeria, Danjuma Haruna, has spoken to the President to rapidly mediate to discourage ASUU from leaving on a new cross country strike.
Haruna made this allure in articulation on Friday, following the ongoing dangers of a new strike by many parts of ASUU.
The assertion read to a limited extent, “Leaving on another cross country strike would
