The National Executive Council (NEC) of the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will meet on Monday next week to decide on the offers by the Federal Government for it to end its ongoing six-month old strike.
According to reports, the meeting promises to be a decisive one and the outcome may determine whether the government would proscribe the union or not. But ASUU says that whatever decision it takes on Monday will be in the students’ best interest.
CAMPUS GIST gathered that, aside meeting to consider offers made to it by the government, ASUU will also consider the reports by the various states branch congresses on strike. While some had voted for the industrial action to be suspended, others voted for the strike to continue.
But, the National President of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, told newsmen that his union was yet to officially get any offer from the government’s side.
“We have been negotiating with them through collective bargaining and whatever they have should not be made to us on the pages of newspapers. It should be done the way it is expected to be done”, Osodeke told Vanguard. “Our main problem with the government is that there is trust deficit. They will say something and will do another thing.
“After the Memorandum of Action was signed last year with them, they were supposed to pay some money in two tranches starting from August last year, but they did not do the needful,” added the ASUU President.
Asked if the Union is likely to toe the line of other university-based unions such as the SSANU and NASU and suspend strike, the ASUU President said his union would meet to decide collectively.
“As for other unions suspending their actions, ASUU is not a one man show, we will look collectively at whatever is presented to us. But as at now, nothing has been officially offered,” he said.
