The President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, has called for urgent talks with the government to resolve several unmet demands of Nigerian universities. He stated this during an interview on Breakfast Central on News Central TV while responding to questions.
He expressed his concerns that negotiations have stalled. “For this government, we’ve not had any formal talk on all the issues for which we were on strike, and we are surprised because one of the people who helped negotiate the call-off for the last strike is the leadership of this particular government,” he said.
Adding that after over a year of waiting, the government is yet to keep to its own side of the bargain. “And for us, after more than one year, and we’ve written to the president, we have written to the senate president, we’ve written to the speaker, and nothing.”
While expressing his displeasure at Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, the Chief of Staff to the president who was the then negotiator between ASUU and the government, he said:
“He (Gbajabiamila) was the major intervener in the negotiations and it was well known to Nigerians. Since they came in, nothing has happened in those areas. Even the renegotiation of those agreements which we finished with the Nimi Briggs committee and hoped they would go back, look at it, and come to sign, nothing has been done.”
“And if there are areas of disagreement, we expect that before now, they would have sent the committee to meet with us, to look at those areas of disagreement, then we sort them out, sign, and move on as a country.”
While expecting the government to do the needful, Osodeke says the government has been shirking its responsibilities. “That’s what we thought would happen because when the government was campaigning, they said there would be no more strikes in universities. So, if truly they want no more strikes in universities, no more disruptions, as soon as they came in, they should have put a high-powered team, a team of patriotic Nigerians, to meet with the unions, not just ASUU, look at all the contending issues, and then look for how to resolve them. But for one year now, a year is one-quarter of this regime, and nothing, not even a meeting, even when we are requesting for a meeting, nothing.”
He restated ASUU’s demand, saying these were reached after broad consultations in 2009.
On the several ultimatums given to the government on the strike action, he said they are set for the worst, after a four-week target:
“Well, we have a four-week deadline and the idea is that within these four weeks, the government should do the needful. There is no need for a strike. In other climes, where people love education, where political leaders have their children in universities, you wouldn’t allow people to give you four weeks to resolve a minor issue.”
He further called on the government to come to the negotiation table. “Let’s meet and resolve the issues, but here, because their children are not in these universities, their relations are not in these universities, they are using our resources to fund them all over the world, they are not interested.”