The federal government has blamed the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) for the escalation of the 10-month-old industrial action by the union.
Reacting to the allegation by the president of ASUP, Chibuzor Asomugha, over the weekend, that government’s intransigence and double standard in the handling of the strike had contributed negatively to the resolution of the crisis, the director for Tertiary Education in the Federal Ministry of Education, Hajia Hindatu Abdullahi, said the refusal of the union to accept the offer by government for staggered payments of the accumulated wage arrears was responsible for the continuation of the strike.
She said:”’We told them that we will only pay the consolidated arrears of salaries for the two unions (ASUP, and COESU), in two installments beginning from march this year. They went back to their meeting only to return with a letter categorically rejecting our offer of install mental payments preferring instead, a one-off payments which we cannot meet up with because in the first place we need to ensure that this additional payment is captured in a supplementary budget.”
ASUP president had during the week accused the federal government of being insensitive to the plight of the education sector.
He had said: “We suspended the strike on July 17, on the understanding that government was going to resolve four of the issues government choose by itself within two weeks, and three months into the suspension, government hadn’t done anything and that was why on October 4, we resumed the strike really and since then I will say that government’s attitude, has been one of snobbery, insensitivity, intimidation, and total disdain for the sector, the union, the students and their parents.”
