ASUU to suspend strike on Monday as branches meet nationwide

There is a high indication that the eight-month-old strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will be suspended on Monday, October 17, 2022, as branches across the nation will be meeting on Tuesday, October 11, and Wednesday, October 12, 2022.

A source close to the National Executive Council (NEC) disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday, October 11, 2022.

According to the source, the over 123 branches will be meeting to vote for or against the strike suspension and decisions will be transmitted to the National Executive Council (NEC) for final decision.

“We got the directive after the meeting with the speaker yesterday(Monday). The intervention was timely. Branches will vote between today and tomorrow after which the decisions will be convened to the NEC,” the source said.

Recall, yesterday the striking university lecturers expressed optimism that the intervention by the House of Representatives on its ongoing face-off with the Federal Government would yield desired results.

The President of ASUU, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, who spoke when the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, briefed the union in Abuja after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari said, “For the first time, we have seen light at the end of the tunnel.”

ASUU shut down public universities in the country on February 14, 2022, to demand full implementation of agreements it had entered into with the Federal Government a few years ago.

Recall, the government had agreed to inject a total of N1.3 trillion into public universities, both state and federal, in six tranches, starting in 2013 after the union decried the deplorable state of the institutions.

In 2013, the government was, according to the agreement, said to have released N200 billion and promised to release N220 billion each year for another five years.

But after releasing the first tranche, the government stopped releasing the funds. In 2017, it, however, released N20 billion. In 2020, it promised to release N25 billion.

ASUU rejected the offer, insisting on N110 billion, which is 50 percent of the N220 billion that it demanded, but the government declined, citing a paucity of funds.

The Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu Adamu, had on August 22, 2022, claimed that the government had resolved most of the demands of ASUU. Among the demands addressed, according to the Minister, was the release of N50 billion for the payment of earned allowances for universities’ academic and non-academic and non-academic staff.

The strike, however, lingered until the Federal Government dragged the union to the National Industrial Court, asking the court to order the lecturer back to class. The National Industrial Court and the Court of Appeal had recently ruled that the lecturers must return to the classroom as negotiations continue.

Gbajabiamila, who waded into the crisis recently due to the plight of Nigerian students, said on Monday during the briefing that the 8-month-old strike would end “in matter of days.”

It was also gathered that President Buhari would meet with ASUU stakeholders on Tuesday, October 11, 2022, after which the strike may be called off.



FI