ASUU Strike Update: No salary, No resumption -ASUU

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said it will not call off this present strike until the four months salaries the government is owing its members are paid.  The union is also calling for an immediate implementation of the N1.2tn offer by the Federal Government to Universities, with immediate release of N100bn this year. The balance of N1.1tn is then to be spread over five years from 2014.

These were some of the resolutions reached by members of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the union who converged in Kano on Friday to discuss on whether to call off the almost-five-months industrial action or not. It was discussed that they will meet with president Jonathan on fresh demands. The date for the new meeting hasn’t been fixed though. SIGH!

According to a source, a strong commitment to the two demands, among other pending issues, must be obtained from the President before the industrial action will be called off by the union. He said: “The issue now is on trust and we do not want a situation where promises will not be kept. The authorities have failed us in the past and we do not want a repeat of that. That was why we decided at the NEC meeting that the government should pay us the arrears of salaries being owed us since we started the strike on July1 before the strike can be called off. The salaries should not be paid piecemeal.  We also insist that the Federal Government should start the implementation of the offer made to us when we met the President some weeks ago.” 

My fellow Nigerian students….the saga continues sadly …… all this yo-yo movement surrounded by the strike – on-off-on-off – we wait with bated breathe on a conclusive update on this ASUU vs Federal Government SAGA.  I suppose its probably fair to say schools are closed for this year and we go just resume for 2014. I tire.