ASUU STRIKE: Hopes dashed, what next?

Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday foreclosed another hope of ending its ongoing nationwide strike, as it described the Governor Gabriel Suswam-led Committee on Earned Allowances as a smokescreen to deceive the union and the public.


ASUU also rejected the recent N130billion offer made by the Federal Government to address infrastructural deficit and accumulated earned allowances of lecturers over a five-year period (2009-2013).

Addressing journalists at the Afe Babalola Hall, University of Lagos (UNILAG) yesterday, Dr Nasir F. Isa, the president, said the union would no longer participate in the deliberation of the Suswam committee unless it assures members that it would not serve as another means of diverting funds meant for universities. He said hope of resolution of the prolonged crisis was dashed by ‘government’s insensitivity and demonstration of bad faith.’

While accusing the Suswam committee of double standard, he said: “Available information indicates that the Suswam committee was to be used as a smokescreen to deceive ASUU, Nigerian students and their parents as well as other unsuspecting members of the public on the purportedly released N100 billion for the implementation of the NEEDS Assessment Report. First, government plans to divert the daily yearly allocations to universities by TETFund to make at least 70 per cent of the N100billion. This is unacceptable to ASUU; it is like robbing Peter to pay Paul since the idea of revitalisation took full congisance of the intervention role of TETFund ab initio.”

He said the ongoing struggle was not only restricted to salvaging the education sector, but also to liberate the nation from the suffocating grips of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and their conspirators. He lamented that the economy was at a grave risk of collapse, as witnessed in Greece, unless patriotic efforts were made to pull it back from the brink.

He warned that Nigerians cannot afford to live under the strangulating economic policies imposed on them by world’s financial institutions and their local economic saboteurs. “It is only by repositioning our universities to compete globally that we can make Nigeria great again. The alternative is to continue in the path charted for us by the duo of IMF and World Bank, which dictates that we surrender our country and the future of our children to continued slavery. We deserve to be free,” he said.

Isa accused government of a grand design to rubbish the 2009 FG/ASUU Agreement, as he warned that the ongoing strike would never be suspended until the government honours the pact and makes concrete efforts to implement it.