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Sack Threat ASUU Dares FG
L-R: Chairman, Forte Oil, Mr Femi Otedola, former Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani and CBN Governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, during a break-out session at the 15th meeting of the Honorary International Investors Council in London, recently.
Photo: NAN
The Federal Government yesterday ordered the Academic Staff Union of Universities to reopen the institutions within one week or get sacked.
The supervising Minister of Education, Barr. Nyesom Wike, disclosed this at a press briefing in Abuja.
He described the ongoing varsity teachers’ strike as “act of sabotage.”
“The continuation of the strike despite several meetings, especially with President Goodluck Jonathan is an attempt by the union to sabotage all efforts by government to address the issue,” he said.
Wike stated that government had directed that all Vice Chancellors of federal universities that are currently on strike should immediately reopen for academic and allied activities.
ASUU embarked on the strike on July 1 to protest government’s non-implementation of the 2009 agreement signed by both parties.
The minister disclosed that government had met all its commitments and obligations with respect to the agreement.
According to Wike, government took the decision to reopen the universities following ASUU’s new conditions which are “not tenable. “
His words: “On November 4, 2013 President Goodluck Jonathan met with ASUU executive, labour union leaders from the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), where all the issues were resolved and firm commitments made to address the lingering crisis.
“It is noteworthy that Mr. President’s gesture was more than sufficient to guarantee the commitment of government to address all issues raised at the meeting with Mr. President. At the end of the meeting, the ASUU team promised to convene a meeting of its National Executive Committee to present the resolutions reached and report back by Friday, November 8, 2013. It is unfortunate that while travelling to attend the NEC meeting in Kano, we lost a key member and former President of the union, Prof. Festus Iyayi.
“Government sympathizes with the family of the late Iyayi and ASUU. It is however amazing that three weeks after the meeting with Mr. President, ASUU responded by giving new conditions for suspending the five month old strike. I have never seen anywhere in any country where you sit down with Mr. President. That is the highest level of discussion. If you cannot believe Mr. President, then who else will you believe?”
“Any academic staff who fails to resume on or before December 4 automatically ceases to be a staff of the institution. Vice-Chancellors are also directed to advertise vacancies (internal and external) in their institutions. The National Universities Commission is hereby directed to monitor the compliance of these directives by the various institutions. The Federal Government has met all its commitments and obligations with respect to the FG/ASUU 2009 Agreement. We appeal to all stakeholders to appreciate the position of government which is in the best interest of our dear country.”
The Academic Staff Union of Universities condemned the Minister over his comments that the union was making new “outrageous” demands, describing it as a lie.
The union said it had only asked President Goodluck Jonathan to facilitate the endorsement of resolutions reached with him and to also be signed by a top government official preferably the Attorney-General of the Federation but not a Permanent Secretary.
National Treasurer of ASUU, Dr. Ademola Aremu, stated the position of the union while speaking in Ibadan last Wednesday. Aremu praised the intervention of Jonathan but pointed out that some of the resolutions reached with him were not contained in the letter sent to the union.
ASUU said its representative and President of Nigeria Labour Congress should stand as witnesses when the document was to be signed.
The union added that it wanted the N200bn agreed as 2013 revitalisation fund for public universities to be kept with the Central Bank of Nigeria and disbursed to the benefiting universities.
Aremu said Wike should have told Nigerians that apart from the N30bn earned allowances released for university staff, the government had yet to release any other fund.
He said, “We are not making fresh demands. In fact, the National Executive Council of the union would have suspended the strike but the concern of our congresses is that many of the things agreed with the President, during the November 4 meeting, were not included in the letter signed by a Permanent Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Education, Dr. Mark Nwobiala.”
He promised that the strike would end as soon as the omissions were corrected in the new resolution.
ASUU said it was evident now that the Federal Government was not ready to implement any resolutions it reached with the union.
“It is a pity if the federal government is not willing to perfect the resolutions reached with the union. This is why we find it difficult to trust our leaders by their words. How can someone be threatening to sack lecturers when universities are already short-staffed by almost 60,000. We are not in military era. The military tried it and failed, this one will fail again”, ASUU said.
ASUU chairman, Dr. Clement Chup of UniAbuja Chapter, said the union dared the Federal Government to sack its members over the prolonged universities’ strike.
He said in a telephone interview that “the school can go ahead and ask students to resume but we won’t do any work; we won’t teach them. It is not our responsibility to resume until ASUU decides. “We’re not afraid of that (sack). He (Education Minister) can go to the motor park to recruit lecturers that will lecture the students. You can now see the insincerity of some people in government.
We told the government when we met that we’re ready to suspend the strike once we’re able to clarify some issues in our agreements with them. But they went ahead without clarifying those issues at stake. We dare them to sack us,” Dr. Clement Chup said.
In his reaction, Chairman, University of Lagos branch of ASUU, Dr. Oghenekaro Ogbinaka said that the development was strange and laughable.
He said that this was so considering the fact that the union was yet to get back to the government, after their deliberations with President Goodluck Jonathan.
“Our reaction is simple. Let us just wait for the seven days to come around.” What government has just done shows that they were not committed in the offer they made with the union that had the Trade Union Congress President and the Minister of Labour in attendance,” he said.
Immediate past Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos, Prof. Oyelowo Oyewo simply described the development as “a glorified joke and laughable”.
Oyewo noted that it was funny that one of the parties which had before now been holding dialogue, would try to intimidate the other.
Also commenting on the directive, Head of Department of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Prof. Sat Obiyan said that the ultimatum was not the best approach to resolving the issue.
The Coordinator of Education Right Campaign (ERC), Mr Hassan Soweto, said that the ultimatum would only worsen the problem, noting that it was against the principle of public bargaining.
“What ASUU wants is some level of commitment from the Federal Government before it will suspend the strike. “It is not right for the government to use force in a democracy,” he said.
A student of Lagos State University, Ojo, Mr. Agbomeji Ibrahim urged the Federal Government not to be authoritative by giving lecturers one week to return to classes or face sack.
Ibrahim urged the Federal Government to be more sensitive in its decision and pleaded that ASUU should also have a rethink as the strike was old enough to be called off.
“The Federal Government must be careful, logical and realistic in its decision, because of the importance of the sector. “Both the Government and ASUU need to accommodate each other on the negotiation table because both parties cannot get all their demands and must be ready to shift grounds,” Ibrahim said.
Chairman of ASUU at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Dr Ifeanyichukwu Abada, said lecturers were not worried by the return-to-work order by the federal government.
Abada said in Nsukka that the union was not dealing with the minister who gave the order but with President Goodluck Jonathan.
“It is unfortunate that the minister thinks that he can use his office to threaten lecturers. The December 4 ultimatum to lecturers to resume work or risk being sacked cannot work,” Abada said.
He said it was unfortunate that rather than pursue amicable resolution of the crisis, the minister was issuing a ‘military order’.
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