Newsfront Online …Telling the Public as it is
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said it will decide on the next course of action after the expiration of its warning strike.
The members of the union were still holding a crucial meeting in Abuja yesterday over their 12-week strike as at the time of filling this report. ASUU also said it did not receive any notice of meeting from the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment. This is as has clarified that it has no official Twitter handle, despite the presence of some accounts named after the association.
The clarification came yesterday after a Twitter handle with the name “@ASUU_NGR” said: “ASUU will end its warning strike tomorrow (Monday), 9th of May 2022, as considerations on indefinite strike commence.”
The chairman of ASUU, university of Abuja branch, Dr Kassim Umaru, said “We do not have Twitter handle,” even though he declined comment on the whether the union would embark on an indefinite strike or not.
When contacted on whether the union would embark on an indefinite strike at the end of its warning strike, the national president of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, did not respond to the requests. However, there are reports that ASUU is poised to go on an indefinite industrial action as the second round of the eight-week warning strike ends today.
The union had earlier gone on a month warning strike on February 14 this year, and extended it by another eight weeks which comes to an end today (Monday, May 9, 2022). While ASUU was into the second round of its warning strike, other staff unions in the university system also embarked on industrial actions.
The unions are the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, (SSANU), the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT), and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Education and Allied Institutions (NASU).
While the minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, had met with the leadership of SSANU, NAAT, and NASU, nothing concrete came out of the meetings. He announced last weekend that he would be meeting with ASUU too.
However, Osodeke, who spoke with media over the weekend said the union had not got an invitation from the government’s team as of the weekend. “We too heard it in the news what the minister of Labour said about meeting with us, but as we talk, nobody has reached out to us for any meeting. We don’t know when the meeting will be called.
“However, I think before going to the press to announce any proposed meeting, what ought to have been done is to inform us. Anyway, we are waiting for the meeting when it is called,” he said.
Speaking on the situation, the National President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Comrade Sunday Asefon, said the association would study the situation and react appropriately.
“We already have a plan of action in place regarding our demands for the reopening of the universities without further delay and we are keeping faith with that. However, if the strike is extended after the eight weeks of warning action, we will also react appropriately too.
“Nigeria students have wasted more than enough time at home doing nothing. With this current situation now, students have wasted time that is enough for them to finish a semester. We are tired of things like this,” he said.
(leadership.ng)
