As at yesterday evening on ASUU Strike: Civil society groups mobilize for nationwide protest over ASUU Strike The groups said details of the protests would be announced next week. Civil society groups and stakeholders in the education sector, said they have intensified efforts to organize a national protest in solidarity with the Academic Staff Union of Universities(ASUU). In a joint statement,the Joint Action Front (JAF), a coalition of labour and civil society groups said the national protest was to “save public education.” Public universities in Nigeria are currently in the third week of a nationwide strike embarked upon by the ASUU. JAF said it held a meeting in Lagos, with zonal and state representatives of ASUU, Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), and College of Education Staff Union (COESU). Dipo Fashina, JAF chairperson, said that the meeting was a furtherance of the resolution passed at a previous meeting to rally Nigerians to join forces with ASUU and other unions in the academic sector to compel the federal and state governments to increase funding to public schools. The meeting identified ASUU’s demands as failure of federal and state governments to fund facilities and infrastructures in universities; failure to implement the NEEDS Assessment Report as agreed in the Memorandum of Understanding on January 24th, 2012; and failure to pay “legitimately” earned allowances of the academic staff. It specifically called for the implementation of the agreements as well as the freedom and autonomy in the administration and running of tertiary institutions, according to Mr. Fashina. “The meeting resolved that a national protest to save public education has become inevitable,” Mr. Fashina, a former ASUU president, said. “The meeting took notice of the irresponsibility of the federal govt. and state govt. to the collapsing state of public education because all political office holders and civil service top functionaries at all levels of government have unhindered access to looting of public fund. “With these funds, they sustain their children and cronies in private schools and universities in Nigeria and abroad,” he added. Abiodun Aremu, JAF’s Secretary, stated that a template for the national protest had been agreed upon, adding that a programme of actions would be made public in the next one week. “We urge all stakeholders in the education sector – parents, students,ASUU, ASUP, COESU, SSANU, National Union of Teachers, workers’ unions and the oppressed Nigerians to hold consultative and mobilization meeting and rallies,” said Mr. Aremu. “JAF declares its total support for the ongoing strike and demand that the federal government and state governments concerned in the management of the various tertiary institutions should implement without further delay the agreements reached with the unions,” he added. Earlier some newspapers read, ASUU Strike: ‘No Work No Pay’ Threat Not Enough To End Strike As the ongoing national strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) enters the third week, the union has said that the threat of no-work-no-pay by the government would not make it suspend the action. Rather, the union, which described the Federal Government as ‘slave trader’, said it had resolved not to go back to the classroom until after the full implementation of the agreement as signed with the union in 2009. It said, ”After about 300 years of slave trade, the FG’s attempt to make this era of a second or third slavery will not be allowed. Our students have said to us ‘do not come back without achieving results from your strike’. The national convener,ASUU Committee on Human Rights, Sola Olorunyomi, stated this in Ibadan at the weekend with a vow that the union would deliver Nigerian education from the enslavement of the political class. Olorunyomi, who is also a member of University of Ibadan Strike Information Sub-committee, lamented that the Federal Government’s body language showed insincerity, recalling that the leadership of ASUU, which met with representatives of the Federal Government were shocked when the government side feigned ignorance of thestrikeand any agreement until they were showed their signatures on the document. “We are resolute this time. We are prepared to go hungry. You can’t believe that the people we met first feigned ignorance of the agreement not until our team brought out the memorandum of agreement and some of them saw their signatures. It was a drama of sorts but you can only have that in Nigeria”, he said. He maintained that both the Federal Government and the political class had conspired to under-develop Nigeria by not funding education, but vowed to forge ahead with the strike until the agreement was fully implemented and the enslavement of education stopped. The strike is still on and with all these developments,it may either end soon or linger on much longer. NESA For Economists will continue to keep you informed. Search for it and LIKE it. Thanks
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 08:31:20 +0000
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