ASUU STRIKE UPDATE : ASUU Gives FG Final Condition Before They End The Strike

It is not yet over, as the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) has given the Government
conditions to be met before the union would finally call
off its over four-month old strike.
"I must tell you that our mandate remains. The only
mandate we have is that 2009 agreement must be met.
We have not reached any agreement with the Federal
Government. "

Since the Federal Government wants to be releasing
N220bn every year for five years, then all monetary
and regulatory agencies must sign…. The reason we
will ensure this is that we don't want argument
tomorrow that the agreement was entered in error or
that they don't know the implication of signing the
agreement. If possible, documents that will provide for
automatic deduction of the agreed money at a
particular/agreed date must be provided."
A prominent member of the union, who craved
anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on
behalf of the union, told Punch that doing this would
give the association the confidence that "the
Government knows what it is doing when it signed the
agreement."He said, "The Central Bank of Nigeria,
Ministries of Finance and Labour, National Assembly,
Office of the Presidency, National Universities
Commission, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Trade Union
Congress and our umbrella body, the Nigeria Labour
Congress, must sign with consequences stated."
Recall that the leadership of ASUU had engaged in a
13-hour marathon meeting with government delegation
led by President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja between
Monday and Tuesday.Asked when the lecturers would
call off the strike, a source who was at the meeting
said, "I doubt if the strike is ending soon. The problem is
with the Finance Minister. Where is government getting
N1trn from? A government that could not implement
agreement between 2009 and 2013, what is the
guarantee that they would honour this agreement."It is
all politics. We are still awaiting directives from our
branches. We have told them the outcome of the
meeting with the President but we are waiting for them
to tell us what they think of government's proposal.

"Imagine the Minister of Education has travelled out of
the country. He was appointed Vice President for
UNESCO General Assembly. How can he travel out of
the country without resolving the crisis in the education
sector?'"The agreement reached by both ASUU and the
Federal Government is that government would inject
N1.1tn into public universities in the next five years.
But ASUU need guarantees that this will happen
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