The Academic
Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, will on Friday hold a National Executive
Council meeting to determine the direction of the ongoing national strike,
PREMIUM TIMES can report.
The meeting
will be holding after national branches equally held meetings on Wednesday to
decide on whether the strike should continue or not.
All branch
chairmen are expected to be in Abuja on Thursday while the meeting is
tentatively expected to end on Saturday, after which a decision will be
communicated to Nigerians.
When
contacted on the planned meeting, the ASUU President, Biodun Ogunyemi, said he
would only speak after the meeting had been held.
“We cannot
react now but after the NEC meeting we will speak on the developments,” he told
PREMIUM TIMES on phone.
Several
branch chairmen and officials spoken to declined to provide information on the
decision of their branches on the strike, saying they had been asked not to
speak to journalists.
“We held
special congresses today. I cannot divulge outcome of the meeting but we held a
meeting on the strike action,” Tomi Damson, secretary of Lagos State University
branch of ASUU said.
The chairman
of another branch of the union in a southern university also spoke on the
interim report received from the branches.
“From the
Southern part of the country and some parts of the North, universities voted
for continuation of the strike; but we cannot tell now until after the meeting
of NEC,” the don said.
The union
went on strike on August 13 to protest against poor welfare and poor funding of
universities, a move that led to the Federal Government inviting the body for
negotiations. ASUU then sent the details of the negotiation to its branches for
further deliberation.
The Minister
of Education, Adamu Adamu had expressed hope that the strike would be suspended
this week.
In a related
development, the Ibadan zone of the union has condemned the “continued
victimization of lecturers in University of Ilorin.”
The zonal
coordinator, Ade Adejumo, who said this in a press statement alleged that the
Vice Chancellor of the university, Ganiyu Ambali, was victimising ASUU members
in the university, a situation he said could lead to further prolonging the
ongoing national strike.
Attempts to
reach Mr. Ambali proved abortive as he did not answer phone calls or reply
messages sent to him.
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