ASUU - Universities Ready To End Strike

Results gathered from the branches Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) of the union over the ongoing strike have indicated that the strike may be called off this week.
It was gathered that University of Lagos, University of Ibadan, FUTO, Imo State University, Bayero University, Kano, and Delta State University want to end the strike.
On the contrary,lecturers from the University of Benin branch of the union want the strike to continue.
Baring last minute change, the National Executive Committee of ASUU will meet on Wednesday night to consider the position of the congresses of the over 50 public universities on the offer made by the Federal government to revamp the institutions to  branch when the union met with President Goodluck Jonathan last Tuesday in Abuja.
The leadership of the union after briefing the zonal coordinators of the offer made by the Federal Government had directed the local branches of ASUU to organise congress between Friday last week and Tuesday.
This is to enable all the lecturers to make input into the last action the union would take after its NEC meeting.
However, feelers from most universities that had organised their congresses revealed that the lecturers will call off the strike after the NEC meeting.
Even in some universities including the Obafemi Awolowo University and the Lagos State University that have scheduled their congress for Monday,  union leaders and lecturers expressed hope that the strike would end this week.
Also, some top officials of the union in some of the nine zones of ASUU said that though they were not happy at the N220bn yearly injection of fund into the public universities for the next five years by the Federal Government, they were happy that a commitment had been obtained by the union.
The source said: “Our NEC meeting will hold between Wednesday night and Thursday. Our chapters have started meeting to discuss the Federal Government’s offer. This is to allow input from all the lecturers. We have to carry them along to avoid disintegration,” the source said.
Though the Ibadan Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Dr. Nassir Adesola confirmed that the NEC meeting would hold on Wednesday, he did not say whether the strike would be called off or not.

“Yes, the NEC will hold on Wednesday evening but ASUU has a process which we are going to follow. NEC reserves the right to call off the strike after due consultation with members and this is why congresses are being called in all the chapters of the union. Please, wait till after the congress,” he told one of our correspondents on the telephone,” he said.

However, a source at the Ibadan Zone of the union, told our correspondents that some members had expressed mixed feelings about the Federal Government new offer based on its refusal to honour the agreement in the past.
“The radicals among us were skeptical about this latest offer. They did not believe that government will respect the agreement. Their view was that government only wanted to deceive the union to call off the strike because it will later jettison it afterwards,” the union leader said.
He also said the opinion of the majority was that the  review of the agreement which was supposed to hold this year should be deferred till next year in the interest of peace.
The official added: “Members were persuaded because President Goodluck Jonathan personally met with the union. They felt since the President was involved in the negotiation this time around, the government cannot say tomorrow that it was arm-twisted to make the offer.
“This is the problem we are having about his 2009 Agreement. By now, we should be talking about its review but we are still having troubles with implementation.  However, we have decided not to belabour government with the review this year because of the new development. But we will wait for this (the review) till next year.
“However, feelers we are getting from across the zones are that we should suspend the strike in honour of the President. But we have decided to put down the government offer in black and white and publish it in some national newspapers. This is to forestall a situation whereby some government officials will turn around later to say they did not know the cost implication of the agreement,” the ASUU leader said.
The source added: “But I call tell you that except the Federal Government tamprered with the offer it made last week, the strike will end this week.   make it public so that nobody accuses us tomorrow that we are asking for too much”.
Some universities are expected to hold their congresses Monday to discuss the fallout of the zonal congresses held at nine centres across the country last week.
Another top official of the union from Lokoja Zone who confirmed the fears confided in our correspondent that although members’ opinions at the zonal congresses were divided over the government’s offer, the majority still decided to give government the benefit of the doubt.
“Though the NEC will make the decision, I can tell you that the strike going by the feelings of members is 75 per cent likely to be called off this week,” he said.
The Federal Government had Tuesday told the ASUU leaders that it would inject N1.1tn into the nation’s public universities in the next five years.
A source at the meeting confided in one of our correspondents that the Federal Government after a long debate agreed to inject N220bn yearly for the next five years beginning from 2014.
“The meeting should be the longest that we have ever had on this crisis but I can tell you that both parties were frank all through the discussions. The parties also showed commitment towards ending the crisis. The President in particular showed that he was serious about ending the strike and that was why he offered to release over N1tn to the universities in the next five years.
“The money will be released on a yearly basis at N220bn per annum beginning from 2014. For the outgoing year, the Federal Government will only release N100bn and this has been processed. In order to show commitment to this deal, the money will be domiciled at the Central Bank and will be released on a quarterly basis to the universities. So, there won’t be any problem about funding the deal,” the source said.