President Jonathan held a meeting with the leadership of ASUU last
week, where he made some offers which ASUU was expected to take to their
members for deliberation with the hope that it will pacify them into
resuming academic activities this week.
Congresses of the 61 chapters of the union were therefore held,
yesterday, while the National Executive Council, NEC, meeting will hold
tomorrow in one of the northern universities.
The outcome of the union’s congresses indicated that there was disagreement on the need to call off the strike.
Newsmen gathered that while some ASUU chapters were ready to suspend
the strike in the light of the President’s intervention, others insisted
that they will continue the strike due to what they described as their
distrust for the government.
It was learnt that while the University of Lagos, UNILAG, resolved to
suspend the strike, chapters like the University of Ibadan, UI;
University of Benin, UNIBEN; University of Calabar, UNICAL; University
of Jos, UNIJOS and the Lagos State University, LASU, said the strike
must continue, arguing that the Federal Government could not be trusted
to fulfil its promise of injecting over N1.1 trillion to universities in
the next five years.
Voting at UNIJOS
Members UNIJOS chapter, yesterday, voted overwhelmingly for the strike to continue.
After receiving briefings on what transpired at last week’s meeting of
the union’s representatives with President Goodluck Jonathan and after
going through copies of the resolution of the meeting, 194 members voted
for the strike to continue while 80 voted for a suspension.
Sources told reporters that after hours of debate by those for and
against the continuation of the strike, it was obvious that majority
felt that the meeting with the president did not achieve much.
Those who spoke in favour of the strike to continue wondered why the
strike should be called off on the basis of pleas and verbal promises by
the president, when the government is allegedly reputed for not to
honoring agreements.
They were said to have argued that the suffering by students and
members in the last four months would be a waste if something concrete
did not come out of the strike to improve the situation in universities.
It was further gathered that those for the suspension of the strike
spoke passionately on the need to consider the impact of the strike on
students and the gesture from President Jonathan, who met personally
with ASUU leaders and pleaded with them to suspend the strike.
A few of them were quoted as saying it was better to suspend the strike
and find other ways of pursuing their demands so as not to lose the
support of the people.
It was learnt that the Branch ASUU Chairman, Dr. David Jangkham, after
announcing the result of the voting, said it would be taken to the
national body which would collate the referendum on the issue from
various chapters to come up with a position on whether the strike would
be suspended or sustained.
A member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, expressed fears that the
referenda in other branches might follow the same trend “if the
briefing we got here is what they got.”
UNILAG
A source at University of Lagos, UNILAG, chapter, told reporters that
the debate at its congress was on whether to end or suspend the strike.
He said: “We eventually moved to suspend the strike and end it only
when the President pumps in the first N220 billion into the universities
in January 2014.
“Although this is not totally in line with the 2009 agreement, we feel
that we can suspend the strike out of respect for the President. We just
want to give him the benefit of doubt, and hope that he fulfills his
promise.”
LASU
At Lagos State University, LASU, one of the executive members of ASUU,
who spoke to newsmen on condition of anonymity, affirmed that though the
chapter was not averse to the proposal of President Jonathan, but the
consensus at its congress was that ASUU should not just be a monitoring
body when the fund is finally injected.
He said: “After our congress, which lasted several hours, it was the
resolve of our chapter that the strike should not be called off, because
we are uncomfortable with the fact that the Federal Government has said
that ASUU will just be a monitoring officer, while the Minister of
Education will be the implementation officer.
“We argued that we must be part and parcel of how the funds are managed
and what they have earmarked for within the period of five years.
“How can we know if the Ministry of Education and other authorities are
prudently spending the funds for the proposed projects if ASUU is not
part of the management committee? So, our position is that the strike
should not be called off.”
LASU’s internal issues
The source added that LASU chapter of ASUU may embark on its local
action, after the national strike is suspended or called off if the
university’s Governing Council and the State Government fail to
adequately address some of its local issues, which border on members’
welfare and a reduction in the institution’s tuition fees.
He said: “It is our resolve at the congress that if the state
government and the university’s Governing Council, which is meeting on
Wednesday, fail to address our local issues adequately, we shall embark
on local actions.
“The university management has wasted four months without addressing
our local issues, which border on the casualisation of our academic
staff, the steep increment in tuition fees paid by students and the
non-implementation of the Universities Miscellaneous Provisions Act,
2012, which allows academic staff on professorial cadre to retire at 70
years against the former 65 years.”
At UI
At the University of Ibadan, newsmen gathered that members asked their
leadership to commit the President to signing the resolution of FG/ASUU
meeting held last week and include non-victimisation clause.
The Chairman, ASUU, University of Ibadan, Dr. Segun Ajiboye, said that
the union had set up project monitoring committee to ensure that funds
released by government was not misappropriated.
Ajiboye maintained that it was not how quick the strike ends but how
well it ends, adding that the goal of the strike must be actualised.
According to him, it was regrettable that it took the Federal
Government four months to think education was an important sector,
adding that no country in the world plays with education the way
Nigerian leaders do.
David-West
Also, former Minister of Petroleum, Professor Tam David-West said,
yesterday, that ASUU would continue to go on strike as long as injustice
remained in the system.
He said this at the UI-ASUU congress, where he vowed to always support
all the struggles that would lead to the rejuvenation of the education
sector.
0 comments:
Post a Comment