ASUU sets conditions to end strike, says no salary arrears, no resumption

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said it would suspend its ongoing strike only if the four months salaries owed its members were paid.
The union also wanted the immediate implementation of the N1.2tn offer by the Federal Government to public universities, starting with the release of N100bn this year. The balance of N1.1tn would be spread over five years from 2014.
These were some of the resolutions reached by members of the National Executive Council of the union who converged on Kano on Friday to deliberate on whether to call off the over four- month-old industrial action or not.
It was gathered that  the fresh demands were some of the issues to be tabled before Jonathan by  the leadership  during their next meeting. A date for the meeting is yet to be fixed.
It was also learnt that a strong commitment to  two demands, among other pending issues, must be obtained from the President before the  industrial action will be called off by the union.
He said, “The issue now is  on trust and we do not want a situation where promises will not be kept. The authorities have failed us in the past and we do not want a repeat of that.
”That was why we decided at the NEC meeting that the government should pay us the arrears of salaries being owed us since we started the strike on July1 before the strike can be called off. The salaries should not be paid piecemeal.
“We also insist that the Federal Government should start the implementation of the offer made to us when we met the President some weeks ago.
“For instance, the N100bn he (Jonathan) agreed to inject into the university system in 2013 should be released to the universities immediately. So, we decided          that before the strike could be called off, these two conditions and others must be met not by promises but by real action.”
The NEC members, who  met behind closed doors  at the Bayero University, Kano, were said to have reviewed the reports of the various university congresses on the strike. – Punch.