The
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) says it may not honour
further calls by the federal government for a meeting on the way forward
over the current strike by its members. The union’s National
President, Biodun Ogunyemi, said this on the sideline of a news
conference on the update of the union’s struggle to salvage the
country’s public universities from deterioration on Sunday in Lagos.
According to Ogunyemi, to ensure that the agreements were implemented,
the union had held a series of consultative meetings with the
government and written series of letters with little or nothing to the
effect. He noted that it was against this backdrop that union resumed
strike on November 4.“Since the commencement of this strike, we have had
six meetings with agents of the federal government, with no clear
commitment from government to resolving the issues we presented.
Government appears to have adopted ‘keep them talking’ strategy while
deceiving the public that progress was being made and that partial
agreements had been reached between union and government. We want to
say that government has continually and falsely raised the hopes of the
Nigerian public on the state of duscussion with our union and we may not
be interested in holding further dialogue with them until we see signs
of commitment and sincerity in addressing the issues before them. Our
expectation from a very responsive and sincere position is that by now,
all outstanding issues would have been resolved to the satisfaction of
both parties. Unfortunately, government is yet to show commitment and
sincerity in addressing these problems,” he said. .According to the don,
on the renegotiation of Federal Government/ASUU agreement, there are
still unresolved issues about the leadership of the government team. .
“We have strong reasons to believe that the continuation of Dr Wale
Babalakin as the head of the renegotiation with ASUU will not yield good
fruit,” he said. Ogunyemi said his union had taken up its current
project as a lifetime, adding that this was why dating back to the
1980s, the union had remained consistent on what was of concern to it.
“If we miss education, we miss development as we will end up being
enslaved the second time. What is happening in this country now is that
people are privatising everything, including education and before we
know it, what happened to our primary and secondary education will
happen. And these are some of the things we are supposed to be tracking
and engage in this society if we want to make the change that we need.
Our conviction is the reason behind the prolonged strike and our members
have the conviction that until we get education right, Nigeria will
never get it right. Insurgency will increase, banditry, poverty,
kidnapping, misery and other societal ills will continue.Let me also
state clearly too that our strike has nothing to do with politics or
election, as is being speculated in some sectors of the society. We have
never thought of aborting any election. We do not want to create
problem for this country but let the government do the right thing,” he
said. ASUU Strike: Union threatens to boycott future meetings, accuse FG of deceiving Nigerians
The
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) says it may not honour
further calls by the federal government for a meeting on the way forward
over the current strike by its members. The union’s National
President, Biodun Ogunyemi, said this on the sideline of a news
conference on the update of the union’s struggle to salvage the
country’s public universities from deterioration on Sunday in Lagos.
According to Ogunyemi, to ensure that the agreements were implemented,
the union had held a series of consultative meetings with the
government and written series of letters with little or nothing to the
effect. He noted that it was against this backdrop that union resumed
strike on November 4.“Since the commencement of this strike, we have had
six meetings with agents of the federal government, with no clear
commitment from government to resolving the issues we presented.
Government appears to have adopted ‘keep them talking’ strategy while
deceiving the public that progress was being made and that partial
agreements had been reached between union and government. We want to
say that government has continually and falsely raised the hopes of the
Nigerian public on the state of duscussion with our union and we may not
be interested in holding further dialogue with them until we see signs
of commitment and sincerity in addressing the issues before them. Our
expectation from a very responsive and sincere position is that by now,
all outstanding issues would have been resolved to the satisfaction of
both parties. Unfortunately, government is yet to show commitment and
sincerity in addressing these problems,” he said. .According to the don,
on the renegotiation of Federal Government/ASUU agreement, there are
still unresolved issues about the leadership of the government team. .
“We have strong reasons to believe that the continuation of Dr Wale
Babalakin as the head of the renegotiation with ASUU will not yield good
fruit,” he said. Ogunyemi said his union had taken up its current
project as a lifetime, adding that this was why dating back to the
1980s, the union had remained consistent on what was of concern to it.
“If we miss education, we miss development as we will end up being
enslaved the second time. What is happening in this country now is that
people are privatising everything, including education and before we
know it, what happened to our primary and secondary education will
happen. And these are some of the things we are supposed to be tracking
and engage in this society if we want to make the change that we need.
Our conviction is the reason behind the prolonged strike and our members
have the conviction that until we get education right, Nigeria will
never get it right. Insurgency will increase, banditry, poverty,
kidnapping, misery and other societal ills will continue.Let me also
state clearly too that our strike has nothing to do with politics or
election, as is being speculated in some sectors of the society. We have
never thought of aborting any election. We do not want to create
problem for this country but let the government do the right thing,” he
said. 
