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Some Nigerian universities have on Monday voted to end the over 4-month old strike.

Find full voting results  after the break.

Voted to continue strike

University of Jos (Note: The chairman of this branch, Dr. David Jangdam, said that despite the
vote the union will resume classes if directed by the national body)

University of Benin

Lagos State University

Voted to end strike:


Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

Bayero University Kano

Delta State University

Ekiti State University

Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta

Federal University of Technology, Owerri

Federal University of Technology, Akure

Federal University of Technology, MINNA

Imo State University

Obafemi Awolowo University

Olabisi Onabanjo University

University of Calabar

University of Lagos

University of Nigeria, Nsukka

University of Ibadan

University of Abuja

University of Port-Harcourt

Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto

A source close to top guns in the Academic Staff Union Of Universities (ASUU) has revealed that lecturers will ditch their four month old strike this weekend so students could resume on November 18 (next Monday).

The source said there was noway the union could reject the new offer of N220bn a year tabled by President Goodluck Jonathan during a marathon meeting with ASUU last week Tuesday.ASUU had come out of that meeting to tell Nigerians it needed time to deliberate on the new deal and reach a consensus among it members before talking to the press.

A top official of the union, has however said the government could not be trusted even on the new offer, and that ASUU’s members were divided over the government’s offer. He, however raised a beam of hope by saying the majority still decided to give the government the benefit of the doubt.

As ASUU executives meet this Wednesday, if the fate of the strike is down to a vote among the striking lecturers, as suggested by ASUU chairman, Nasir Fagge, the four month old impasse may surely end this week.ASUU went on strike July 1 over the non-implementation of a 2009 agreement it had with the government with a key component of the memorandum of understanding the allocation of 26% of Nigeria’s total budget to education.

Although the government is planning to allocate just 9% of the 2014 budget to education, ASUU now seems set to end the strike after government offers that would surely boost lecturers’ take home pay and improve varsity infrastructure.

Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities have given the Federal Government certain conditions to be met before the union could call off its four-month old strike.
Part of this condition, Saturday PUNCH learnt, is that all federal parastatals in charge of fund, labour, and education must sign the agreement purportedly reached between its leadership and the Federal Government on Tuesday.

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A prominent member of the union, who craved anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on behalf of the union, told Saturday PUNCH that doing this would give the association the confidence that “the Federal Government knows what it is doing when it signed the agreement.”
He said, “I must tell you that our mandate remains. The only mandate we have is that 2009 agreement must be met. We have not reached any agreement with the Federal Government.

“Since the Federal Government  wants to be releasing N220bn every year for five years, then all monetary and regulatory agencies must sign. The  Central Bank of Nigeria, Ministries of Finance and Labour, National Assembly, Office of the Presidency, National Universities Commission, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, Trade Union Congress and our umbrella body, the Nigeria Labour Congress, must sign with consequences stated.

“The reason we will ensure this is that we don’t want argument tomorrow that the agreement was entered in error or that they don’t know the implication of signing the agreement. If possible, documents that will provide for automatic deduction of the agreed money at a particular/agreed date must be provided.”

The leadership of the union had engaged in a 13-hour marathon meeting with  government delegation  led by President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja between Monday and Tuesday.
Though it was generally perceived that both ASUU and the Federal Government  achieved breakthrough in negotiation for the first time after the lengthy meeting with the President, Saturday PUNCH learnt that the lecturers might not be  in a hurry to go back to class.
Another  source close to ASUU who was also part of the marathon meeting  with the President in Abuja, said there was nothing new in what the President promised members of the union.

According to him, government had always failed in implementing agreements reached with ASUU. He said, “Truly the President sat down for more than 13 hours with us. He told us that we were not leaving the venue until the issues were resolved.  The Federal Government also promised to inject funds into the system, but a promissory note is not enough.

“Where would the money come from? There  is no assurance that government will provide money especially with the mop-up policy in place that ensures that unspent money is refunded to government’s coffers at the end of every year.’’

Asked when the lecturers would call off the strike, he said, “I doubt if the strike is ending soon.  The problem is with the Finance Minister. Where is government getting N1trn  from? A government that could not implement agreement between 2009 and 2013, what is the guarantee that they would honour this agreement.

“It is all politics.  We are still awaiting directives from our branches. We have told them the outcome of the meeting with the President but we are waiting for them to tell us what they think of government’s proposal.

“Imagine the Minister of Education has travelled out of the country. He was appointed Vice President for UNESCO General Assembly.  How can he travel out of the country without resolving the crisis in the education sector?’’

He said the Federal Government should spend the trillions of dollars in its Sovereign Wealth Fund to finance university education and improve infrastructure in the country.
A key component of the agreement reached by both ASUU and the Federal Government was that government would inject N1.1trn into public universities in the next five years. Government is expected to inject N220bn yearly into the public university sector beginning from 2014.  But government said it could only release N100bn this year, noting that the amount had already been processed.
The Federal Government also indicated that the N1.1trn would be domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria to show its commitment to the agreement. The money is expected to be released on quarterly basis to the universities so that there won’t be any problem about funding the deal.
The National Universities Commission and the Trade Union Congress will be the joint guarantors of the agreement while the Minister of Education will be the implementing officer. Government, according to sources at the meeting, also agreed to revamp public universities by ensuring that all the issues that always lead to strike are dealt with once and for all.
Asked to confirm if lecturers were planning to call off their strike, ASUU Chairman, University of Calabar branch, Dr. James Okpiliya, said the local chapter was yet to get formal briefing on the meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan.  He, however, said the union would make its position known to the press on the President’s offer after the end of a meeting scheduled for mid-night Thursday.
Also, Chairman of ASUU in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Prof. Adegbola Akinola, said that members must be properly briefed on the resolution between the Federal Government and representatives of ASUU in the last marathon meeting.
He said the only condition that could make its members accept any offer would be the provision of necessary documents.
He said, 

“The NEC meeting may not hold now. It is the local congress that is expected to hold first which is either tomorrow or Monday.

“Our members are not yet briefed about the details, so it is when we meet that we will know the details and then discuss whether what we got is sufficient enough to justify our action or demand.

“I can’t really pre-empt the mind of other members. But if we are to accept any offer, there must be document to back that up. We need to obtain documents on that. Maybe if there is a document, people may look at it critically.”

However, the Federal Government said it would include the N1.1trn promised ASUU in the education budget starting from next year. It also said it was waiting for the union to know the next step to take.
The Director, Press and Public Relations of the Ministry of Education, Mr. Olu Lipide, told one of our correspondents on Thursday that government was waiting for ASUU to take the necessary steps.
Meanwhile, the Dean of Social Sciences, University of Lagos, Prof. Omololu Soyombo, has said that the general ASUU body must agree before the strike could be called off.
He said, “It is difficult to believe the President but we give him the benefit of doubt. We believe that the President is noble, the ASUU president promised to give him a feedback. If this had been done earlier, the strike wouldn’t have extended for so long.”
Corroborating his view, the Chairman, Lagos State University, ASUU, Dr. Jamiu Oluwatoki said, “It won’t be long again. By next week there should be a NEC meeting and subsequently the congress meetings before the president can call off the strike.”

After getting an annual payment offer of N220 billion for the next five years, from the federal government, following a marathon meeting that ended Tuesday, indications have emerged that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) may lose the sympathy of several and might make the  government wield the big stick if it rejects the recent offer by the government, with the full blown implementation of the ‘no work, no pay'policy likely to break the ranks of the union and cause disaffection on the list of members who'd have the pinch of the salaries being withheld.

FG To ASUU: FG to give varsities N1.1tn in five years.

President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday ruled out payment of compensation to victims of terrorists attacks carried out by the Boko Haram sect and other groups in the country.

Receiving report from the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North at the Presidential Villa, the President said the government will only look at ways to help the victims get back to their businesses.

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Despite the challenges faced by the committee at its inauguration, he said that it has laid the foundation for follow up action which would lead to the eventual control and end of the crisis.

Even with the progress made in the fight against terrorism in the north, he maintained that the war is not yet won.

He said:

“We also noted the suggestion about the victims’ support because that is one of the terms of reference; how will government help to see that we can assist. Government is not going to compensate. It is not an issue of compensation but how do we assist people who have suffered to get back to business one way or the other.

“Government will look into this and other recommendations in your report and see that the right decisions are taken.

“Incidentally, we have security council meeting because this committee was an offshoot of the security council and we will review some aspects of this report and probably set up a team to look at it and work out a planned programme in terms of implementation of the recommendations.”

On the challenging assignment, he said:

 “First, let me on behalf of government welcome you to the State House and indeed, thank you for accepting to serve for the period you have served. Even the day we inaugurated you, we noted that it was quite a challenging job. It is not a ballroom dance because you were asked to meet the kind of characters you cannot even predict their behaviour.”

In a last ditch effort to solve the ASUU strike, President GEJ will on Monday, November 4, meet with the leadership of ASUU at the Presidential Villa.  This is part of the resolutions of the meeting involving the ASUU leadership, Vice President Namadi Sambo and the Supervising Minister of Education on Tuesday as was first reported by this medium.

Continue after the break.

The state of the Vice President's office who pleaded anonymity said that most hands are now actually on deck to ensure the universities resume next week.

The state stated that the Vice President and the Supervising Minister of Education have made head-way in resolving the strike, but the ultimate involvement of the President is to show ASUU that there surely is the commitment of the Federal Government at the best level.

It was learnt that the President has been fully briefed on steps taken by Vice President Namadi Sambo and the Supervising Minister of Education to obtain up to now and he'll at next Monday's meeting give the ASUU leadership the administration's last concession to allow them to call off the prolonged strike.
A source at the Presidential Villa noted when ASUU doesn't call off, the Federal Government will likely then resort to plan B, which is to compulsorily open the universities, utilizing the instrumentality of the governing councils and the institution managements.

Already, a lot of the governing councils of the universities have started meeting to work through modalities for the compulsory re-opening of the universities should ASUU neglect to honour the non-public request of President Jonathan.

In accordance with report, the Supervising Minister of Education, Barr. Nyesom Wike and the Vice Chancellors of Public Universities also discussed the re-opening of the schools last Monday. A lot of the Vice Chancellors suggested the compulsory re-opening of the schools, should the final ditch efforts fail.
It was gathered that security report open to the Presidency could have necessitated this distinct action to salvage the universities system from the direction it is facing at present.

Commuters in Lagos, western Nigeria, were stranded, Saturday morning, when workers with the Bus Rapid Transit, BRT scheme refused to act as they protested their unpaid salaries. The commuters, who expected to board the bus after the monthly sanitation, were left to bemuse their fate once the boarding points at Ketu and Ojota bus stops were  empty.  It was revealed that the ticketers and drivers refused to act as their salary for last month hadn't been paid-a situation which they're not used to.

 Continue after the break.

The ticketers and bus drivers met using their bosses at their Ketu office and efforts made by our correspondent to obtain the management to talk, proved futile because the correspondent was bundled out of the park and his recording device seized. However, two of the drivers who later spoke on the problem of anonymity, accused a senior staff of cutting their earnings.

According to the drivers who claimed to be a senior staff,” ever since this man came aboard, things have changed drastically. He has kept making promises which he hasn't kept for once. Our salary was always paid on the twenty-fifth of the month but now, we are yet to obtain our salaries.

“We used to obtain eight tins of milk monthly before he came but presently, we don't get any and there isn't any explanation for this.

“The leadership has not also told the truth about our salary because we earn just N45,000 as contrary to the N75,000 that outsiders have been made to believe”