The face-off between the Federal
Government and members of the
Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU) may have taken another twist as
the former is making plans to railroad the
striking lecturers back to the classrooms.
University lecturers had embarked on an
indefinite strike in July after accusing the
FG of reneging on their promise of,
among other things, injecting funds into
the education sector.
The lecturers had
given stringent conditions for their return
to classes demanding a payment of the
four-month salary arrears of its members
from July and the release of N200 billion
that President Goodluck Jonathan
promised to inject into the university
system within the next two weeks.
The FG had countered these demands by
ordering the lecturers back to school by
Wednesday, December 4, reportedly
directing the Inspector General of Police
to make adequate preparations to
forestall any form of violence which may
ensue as the directive is being obeyed by
willing lecturers.
According to reports, the FG delegation
had met on Friday with vice-chancellors
of Federal Universities to fashion out a
way of ensuring that its directive is
followed by their respective institutions.
The meeting which reportedly had the
Nigerian Universities Commission (NUC)
boss, Julius Okojie in attendance
deliberated on replacing the striking
lecturers with new ones and opening a
register in institutions so that members
that resume work would indicate by
signing and those who fail to do so may
be shown the way out.
Read the 10 things we gleaned from the
deliberations below:
-
There was an emergency meeting on
Friday convened by the Federal
Government and held with all vice-
chancellors of federal universities at
the National Universities Commission
building in Abuja. The Acting Minister
of Education, Chief Nyesom Wike, and
the Executive Secretary of the NUC,
Prof Julius Okojie, were at the meeting.
- The FG has directed the Inspector
General of Police, Mohammed
Abubakar, to deploy policemen to all
federal universities in the country in
its bid to ensure resumption of
academic activities on or before
December 4.
- To confirm this directive, the Police
Public Relations Officer in Enugu,
Ebere Amaraizu, said its men had
been directed to man universities in
the state to quell any protest that
might result from the Federal
Government’s order on lecturers to
resume work on or before Wednesday.
- The Friday meeting which took place
in Abuja began at 9am and lasted for
two hours. Part of the meeting’s
deliberations, also centred on how to
recruit new lecturers to fill the space
of ASUU members who might refuse to
obey government’s directive. NUC
boss, Julius Okojie was reportedly
mandated to start the process of
recruiting new lecturers by placing
vacancy adverts in international
journals and media.
- There are indications that vice-
chancellors have been directed to call
students back to campus by tomorrow
in preparation for academic activities
which should start early next week.
- The vice-chancellors were directed to
open registers in their institutions
where ASUU members that resume
work would sign so that those who
failed to resume could be shown the
way out.
- Reports say that the Federal
Government was planning to adopt the
Ghanaian method where lecturers
were asked to re-apply for their jobs
after a prolonged period of downing
tools.
- It was revealed that Nigerian
universities are currently in need of
about 30,000 lecturers due to the
shortage of lecturers in the university
system.
- December 4 is a decisive day
between the FG and striking university
lecturers as the date had been set
aside by ASUU to bury Prof. Festus
Iyayi, a former President of the union
who died in an accident on his way to
a meeting in Kano.
Iyayi had died on
the Abuja-Lokoja road when the car
his was travelling in collided with the
convoy of the governor of Kogi, Idris
Wada on Novermber.
Members of the Union had quickly
made a decision to suspend its
proposed NEC meeting indefinitely to
honour the memory of the late
professor.
- The University of Nigeria (UNN)
chapter of ASUU yesterday said its
members would not resume work until
their demands are met. The UNN-
ASUU also described the Minister of
Education, Wike, as a “tout”.
“We have not heard from the
President, so we cannot speak officially
on the matter. It would be senseless to
begin to react to a statement from
Wike since he is a tout,” said Dr.
Ifeanyi Abada, Chairman of UNN-
ASUU.
Well, where do we go from here. Your
guess is as good as ours. It is however,
imperative that the two parties
immediately find a way out of this
impasse so as not to keeps students at
home unnecessarily.
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