Indications have emerged that the Academic Staff Union of Universities may call off the over four-month-old strike on Thursday.
Barring a last-minute change, the
National Executive Committee of ASUU will meet on Wednesday night to
consider the position of the congresses of the over 50 public
universities on the offer made by the Federal government to revamp the
institutions.
The union met with a Federal Government team led by President Goodluck Jonathan last Tuesday in Abuja.
The ASUU leadership, after briefing the
zonal coordinators on the offer, had directed the local branches to
organise congress meetings between Friday last week and Tuesday
(tomorrow).
This is to enable all the lecturers to make input into the action the union would take after its NEC meeting on Thursday.
However, feelers from most universities
that had organised their congresses revealed that ASUU would suspend
the strike after the Thursday NEC meeting.
In some universities, including the
Obafemi Awolowo University and the Lagos State University that have
scheduled their congress meetings for Monday (today), union leaders and
lecturers expressed hope that the strike would end this week.
Also, some top officials of the union in
some of the nine zones of ASUU said even though they were not happy
with the plan by the government to inject N220bn yearly into the public
universities for the next five years, they were pleased that a
commitment had been obtained by the union.
Though the Ibadan Zonal Coordinator of
ASUU, Dr. Nasir Adesola, confirmed that the NEC meeting would hold on
Wednesday, he did not say whether the strike would be called off or not.
“Yes, the NEC will hold on Wednesday
evening but ASUU has a process which we are going to follow. NEC
reserves the right to call off the strike after due consultation with
members and this is why congresses are being called in all the chapters
of the union. Please, wait till after the congress,” he told one of our
correspondents on the telephone.
But another source said, “Our NEC
meeting will hold between Wednesday night and Thursday. Our chapters
have started holding meetings to discuss the Federal Government’s offer.
This is to allow input from all the lecturers. We have to carry them
along to avoid disunity since there are moves by some elements to
infiltrate us.”
Another source told one of our
correspondents that some members had expressed mixed feelings about the
Federal Government’s new offer based on its refusal to honour past
agreements.
PUNCH
No comments:
Post a Comment