The Academic Staff Union of Universities has declared a “comprehensive and total” strike.
The strike was declared at a press conference addressed by the President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, on Monday.
Members of the union’s National Executive Council had held marathon meetings since Saturday at the University of Lagos titled, ‘NEC for NEC.’
ASUU had sensitised and mobilised lecturers and students across all universities on the reason the union might likely go on strike.
After serious deliberations that dragged into the early hours of Monday, the National Executive Council, NEC, of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has voted to embark on one-month warning strike to press home its demands from the government.
A source at the meeting held in Lagos told Vanguard in confidence that the strike is to allow the Federal Government do the needful failure to which the union would go on an indefinite strike.
We just want to give the government a long rope hoping that it would see the need to avoid a total paralysis of academic activities in the nation’s universities. We are parents too and have our children in the system but we cannot watch and allow the total collapse of education in the country.
“Our agitation is in the interest of all and if the system is made better, we will all enjoy it. Prominent personalities in the country have waded into the matter but the government seems recalcitrant. Our National President would explain more when he briefs the press later today,” he said
The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, on Thursday said most of the agreements reached with the Academic Staff Union of Universities were under duress.
Echono stated this during a retreat organised by the governing council of the University of Abuja.
ASUU and the Federal Government have constantly been engaged in tussles over the latter’s failure to meet some of the demands put forward by ASUU.
Echono said, “I have heard so much about the fact that the government has failed to honour the agreements with ASUU. I have a different view about that because most of these agreements are imperfect.
“If somebody comes to my house and puts a gun to my head, I might agree to everything because those agreements are signed under duress. If you want to introduce obligations or responsibilities on their part, they will insist you cannot.”
Meanwhile sources on Thursday told our correspondent that ASUU would decide whether to go on strike or not following the end of its scheduled zonal conferences on December 15, 2021.
In a document obtained by The PUNCH, it was gathered that the meetings would take place between December 9 and December 15 in Abuja, Nsukka, Ibadan, Yola, Benin, Akure, Lagos, Bauchi, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Sokoto and Kano.
The source added that the decision to go on strike would depend on the outcome of the zonal press briefings.
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