Anxiety as ASUU makes decision on strike Monday

The Academic Staff Union of Universities is expected to come up with a decision on whether to embark on fresh industrial action known on Monday (today).

Members of the union’s National Executive Council have been holding marathon meetings since Saturday.

Members of NEC, including ASUU leaders across campuses, had been in a closed-door meeting at the University Of Lagos, Akoka and would have the final lap of the meeting by 12 midnight Monday.

They promised to address a press conference on Monday (today) to announce the resolutions of the two-day meeting titled, ‘NEC for NEC.’

There was anxiety among university students and parents last night over fear that the union may declare fresh strike.

A source told our correspondent that the meeting has been moved from the Ade Ajayi Auditorium in UNILAG where they started on Saturday to Tayo Aderinokun Lecture Hall on Sunday.

ASUU decided to embark on the two-day meeting after it had sensitised and mobilised lecturers and students across all universities on the reason the union might likely go on strike.

While the sensitisation was ongoing, the co-chairmen of the National Inter-religious Council;  President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Dr Samson Ayokunle; and the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Abubakar III, visited the President, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.),  over the lack of implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding the government signed with ASUU in 2009 and others.

But ASUU national president, Prof. Emmanuel Oshodeke, and other leaders across the campuses insisted that the Federal Government could not be trusted following its consistent refusal to implement the Memorandum of Action it signed with the union, leading to the suspension of the 2020 strike action.

After the union’s National Executive Council meeting at the University of Abuja on November 13 and 14, ASUU President, Osodeke, lamented that despite meeting with the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, on October 14, 2021, on issues, including funding for revitalisation of public universities, earned academic allowances, University Transparency Accountability Solution; promotion arrears, renegotiation of 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement, and the inconsistencies in Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System Payment, none of its demands had been met.