ASUP Strike 2014: Union faults FG of Hypocrisy to End strike The war between the federal government and ASUP union continues, and this time around, the card is at the side of ASUP and the receiving side of the federal government. Remember the popular adage that says “When two elephants are fighting, who suffers the most? The GRASSES of course”. No matter what happened, the most people who gets hurts the most are the Polytechnic students who have been at home idle for 6 months now without getting the chance to open their books. Within six month, there would have been a significant increase in what our students learn in school. According to the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), who has articulate uncertainty about the sincerity of the federal government to put an end to the on-going strike embarked upon by the union about five months ago (6 months now). While speaking on this issue, the National President of the onion Chief Chibu-zo Asomugha, did told newsmen yesterday that the federal government is not willing to shift ground and end the strike which is stopping Polytechnics students from learning. The National president also said that the union expected the federal government to resolve all issues last Wednesday when the executives of the union met with the supervising Minister of Education Nyesom Wike but it failed. He said and we quote him: “The minister called us for a meeting in FCT. Abuja and you know one month or so ago, government had given us proposal about how to offset the arrears it owed our members but our NEC rejected the proposal. So when the minister invited us we thought there was something new, but when we went there, to our dismay, we discovered that it was the same promise and what’s more interesting, is that the federal government was not willing to shift ground and make meaningful and verifiable commitments to address the matter.” The meeting which the union had with the Nigerian federal government ended in a deadlock and the lecturers resolved to continue with the strike until government settled all their demands. It would be recalls that a similar meeting between the minster for education and leaders of the ASUP held on January 22, 2014 but did not achieve any goal. However, we received a comment from Special Assistant on Media to the Supervising Minister, Mr. Simeon Nwakaudu who said that the federal government remained committed to resolving the matter. According to Mr Simeon, who said and we quote him “The last Wednesday’s meeting was to reassure them that the commitment of the federal government on the strike remains total; government is working hard to see that lecturers of polytechnics go back to their work,” he said. “So far it is only one issue that remains unresolved that is the timing of the payment of CONTISS 15 arrears and once we have agreed on the timing, the strike will end,” Mr Simeon added. We do hope that this strike gets called off and all affected students resume academic activities in their different academic institution.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 20:36:26 +0000
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