The Academic Staff Union of Universities has criticized the Federal Government for intervening “a little too late” to stop its planned warning strike.
Professor Chris Piwuna, the president of ASUU, made the remark Thursday in an interview with Channels Television’s The Morning Brief. He accused the government of not responding quickly enough to the union’s demands.
“The Ministry of Education and this government are slow to respond to our demands, which is our problem,” Piwuna stated.
After a prior meeting in Sokoto, he recalled, the union had given the government a three-week deadline, but he claimed that no follow-up correspondence from the authorities occurred during that time.
He said, “We were going to start a strike action at the time we went to Sokoto for a meeting.” “We accepted the three weeks they gave us, but we didn’t hear from them until the three weeks had passed. They didn’t even have the decency to say, ‘Oh gentlemen, we think we are running short, three weeks is around the corner, we are unable to meet with you on so-and-so date.'” Not until we threatened to take action.
Piwuna claims that the administration only inquired about a suspension of the scheduled action two working days prior to the proposed strike.
They urged us yesterday to refrain from taking any action. Our 2009 deal is still in the midst of an eight-year renegotiation. You come to appeal to us two working days prior to a strike action, even though we haven’t reached a decision on it. “I believe the appeal was made a bit too late,” he stated.
When the current deadline ends on Sunday, the ASUU President insisted that unless the government offers concrete remedies, the union’s members will carry out their scheduled warning strike.
“If nothing significant is announced by the government, there will be a warning strike after their ultimatum expires on Sunday,” Piwuna cautioned. Therefore, we anticipate hearing from the administration with anything significant within the next 48 hours. We can then return to our members and ask, “Do you think this is sufficient for us to hold on?” and take action based on their requests.
Earlier, on October 13, ASUU had instructed its branches nationwide to be ready for a two-week warning strike.
The most recent stalemate between the union and the federal government is just one more fight over the 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement, lecturers’ welfare, and university funding.
In the meantime, Dr. Tunji Alausa, the country’s minister of education, announced on Wednesday that the government had reached the last round of negotiations with ASUU and other university unions in an effort to resolve the ongoing crisis in the nation’s postsecondary education system.
