ASUU Begins Strike

(ASUU) yesterday
directed its branches and members
nationwide to embark on a total,
comprehensive and indefinite strike,
following the refusal of the federal
government to implement agreement
reached more than two years ago.
ASUU president Prof. Ukachukwu
Awuzie told journalists in Port
Harcourt that there is a clear
indication that the government of
Nigeria is insincere and unwilling to
fulfil its own side of the agreement
that was freely entered and freely
signed by both parties.
Prof. Awuzie state: “NEC, having noted
that the federal government
neglected, ignored, failed and refused
to implement the core components of
the 2009 FGN/ASUU Agreement after
more than two years of its signing,
having squandered the two months it
requested without achieving any
progress in the implementation of the
Agreement, having sacked the
Implementation Monitoring
Committee that serves as the forum
for dialogue with ASUU on this
dispute, is convinced that government
is terribly insincere and is manifestly
unwilling to genuinely implement the
Agreement freely entered with ASUU.
The government has abandoned the
main tenet of industrial democracy -
that all agreements freely entered into
must be honoured.
“NEC of ASUU therefore resolved,
painfully, to direct all members of
ASUU in all branches nationwide to
proceed on a total, comprehensive
and indefinite strike beginning from
the midnight of Sunday, 4th
December 2011. For the avoidance of
doubt, a total, comprehensive and
indefinite strike means: no teaching,
no examination, no grading of script,
no project supervisions, no inaugural
lectures, no appointment and
promotion meetings, no statutory
meetings (Council, Senate, Boards,
etc) or other meetings directed by
government or their agents.”
The ASUU president lamented that
ASUU having granted the federal
government a grace of two months
after a one week warning strike that
ended in September with a
Memorandum of Understanding
reached between the minister of
education and that of labour and
productivity, on strategies and
timelines to facilitate the
implementation of the agreement, the
government rather sacked the
implementation and monitoring
committee.
“In the last two months (which
government officially requested) ASUU
made strenuous efforts to get the
expanded Implementation Committee
to meet and do its work. In fact,
government, instead of encouraging
the expanded committee, actually
sabotaged it by unilaterally sacking
the chairman and a couple of other
members, in breach of the University
Miscellaneous Amendment Act
(2003),” he said.
Part of the agreement reached
between ASUU and government was
that the sum of N 1.5 trillion would be
released within the next three years
by all federal universities jointly for
both recurrent and capital grants.
Awusie described the ongoing
institutional accreditation as part of a
conspiracy by the Jonathan
administration through its agency, the
National Universities Commission
(NUC), as a deceptive measure to
give a feigned position that all is well
in the university system.
He observed that, in the last decade,
the federal budgetary allocation to
education was at an average of 8%
compared to other countries like
Ghana and South Africa with 30% of
their total budget devoted to
education consistently for the last few
decades.
Commenting on the state of the
nation, ASUU alleged that the
Jonathan-led administration is nothing
but a group of ruling class bent on
mortgaging the future of the country
to the western imperial powers,
adding that ASUU will strongly resist
the planned fuel subsidy removal.