There is a glimmer of hope towards the resolution of the industrial face-off between the federal government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Blueprint has learnt.
A top union source said the body’s National Executive Council (NEC) “is most likely going to convene an emergency meeting Thursday to put an end to the eight-month old industrial action. This is to be preceded by consultations at the branch levels.
“However, I may not be able to tell the time of the meeting and whether it would end (meeting) same Thursday. But whichever way, the meeting will discuss all available options in view of the many developments, including the court pronouncement and the intervention by Speaker (House of Representatives) Gbajabiamila.”
At different times, ASUU President Emmanuel Osodeke, Speaker of the House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila and ASUU’s lead counsel, Femi Falana (SAN), had in the last few days assured the industrial face-off would be resolved in a couple of days.
Lecturers in public universities commenced a warning strike February 14, 2022 following what they described as government’s failure to honour the 2009 agreement among others.
And after all efforts appeared to have yielded no result, the federal government, through the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, approached the National Industrial Court (NAIC) to ‘call the striking teachers to order.’
Although the NAIC ordered the union to call off its strike and resume work, they, however opted to appeal the judgement.
In its pronouncement, the Court of Appeal granted ASUU the right to appeal but ordered them to obey the NAIC order before their appeal could be heard.
And in concord with the federal government’s position that ASUU could not approach the appellate court with “dirty hands”, the panel ruled that “should the applicant fail to obey the order (of the lower court), the leave granted shall be automatically vacated.”
Voting commences
And in line with the above, Blueprint gathered that the various branches of ASUU commenced voting Tuesday through Wednesday over the ongoing strike by the union.
“We got the directive after the meeting with the speaker on Monday. The intervention was timely. Branches will vote between today and tomorrow after which the decisions will be convened to the NEC,” the source said.
‘Court can’t decide’
In a related development, the union has said only its members can determine when to call off the strike.
Chairman of the University of Ibadan zone of ASUU, Professor Ayoola Akinwole, made this known Tuesday while featuring on a Fresh FM 105.9 Ibadan live program monitored by Blueprint.
He stated that whatever might be the outcome of the ongoing moves and the court order directing the union to call off the strike, each council of the union would still hold congresses where members of the union would expected to decide on whether to call off the strike or otherwise.
He said the union was not yet in receipt of a copy of the Court of Appeal judgment and that when it eventually did, it would seek the interpretation of it through its lawyer.
‘Education standard falling’
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of Ecobank Pan African Centre, Dele Alabi, Tuesday stated that the standard of education had fallen in public universities.
This, he said, had led to the massive movement of students to private universities.
Alabi, who is the chairman of the 16th Award & Recognition Day of the Redeemer’s University, Ede, Osun state, advised the government at the federal and state levels to come together and return the standard of education back to its usual position.
He said in the 70s/80s, students were always agitating to go to public universities when “attending a public university in Nigeria was a great thing to do.
“But now, the standard has fallen significantly. A lot of people have had to move away from public universities to private universities. It should not be like that, it ought not to be like that.
“The federal government of Nigeria, both at the national and sub-national level have to come together to ensure that we lift our education higher.”
While stating that education is not cheap, he said, “there has to be some cost to education and all the relevant stakeholders must come together to lift our education higher.”
In his remarks, Vice Chancellor of Redeemer’s University, Prof Anthony Akinlo, said the Award and Recognition Day was set aside to recognise and appreciate members of staff and those considered to have distinctly performed their responsibilities.
The university announced a scholarship covering the full course of tuition for 19 students of 2021-2022 with the highest CGPA while 28 ‘silver scholars’ got a scholarship of 50 per cent of their tuition.
Also, 23 students in various departments under the ‘bronze scholars’ were given 50 per cent of the cost of tuition for the 2021/2022 session.
