12 December 2013

Will ASUU Call Off Its Strike Soon?

I just saw this exciting headline on a National newspaper "ASUU calls off its 5 months old strike" and I was like oh let me check out the details; and it goes... (an excerpt though)

A silver lining yesterday emerged in the five-month-old face-off between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) as the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) intervened with both parties signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The lecturers went on strike on July 2 this year over conditions in the universities, among other issues.

However, ASUU failed to announce the suspension of the strike. Its president, Dr. Nasir Fagge, said the signed document would be presented for further deliberation at their National Executive Council (NEC) meeting which will be convened this week.

The Supervising Minister for Education, Nyesom Wike, while reading out the MoU terms,said, “let me say clearly that today is not just historic, it is one of the happiest days of my life since I became the Minister of Education. really?

“As you are all aware ASUU had been on strike for well over five months on account of their resolve to bring about a new lease of life to all public universities, following Mr President’s personal intervention with the marathon meeting we held on November 4, 2013".

“As a responsible and responsive government, we have a duty to restore normalcy to our university system so that our children can resume classes and pursue their educational careers. Consequently, the vice chancellors of the federal universities were directed by the pro-chancellors to immediately re-open the universities for academic activities while the minor discrepancies are sorted out". responsive for more than 5 months?

The ASUU president's response - “Honourable minister, if what we had agreed on at that 13 hours meeting had been judiciously documented and our members were convinced that it would be implemented, we wouldn’t have wasted this time because we have a lot of respect for the office of Mr President.

“Our members are intellectuals and it’s simply because over the years particularly since the signing of the 2009 Agreement, we have been pursing government to get that agreement implemented we only succeeded in getting implemented a portion of that agreement and here we are over four years, but I think it’s never too late. Please Mr. ASUU President, call off the strike.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Let's know you visited, leave a comment! Share! Tweet! Or Blog It!