The academic staff union of universities has shed more light on its impasse with the federal government.
Recall that the lecturers embarked on industrial action that was called off last week after eight months.
However, in an interview aired on Channels TV, the National President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, speaks on why the action took that long.
He said circumstances beyond their control and the intervention of the national assembly forced their hands and they had to suspend the strike.
He said “As you can see from our press release through which we announced the suspension of the strike, we are obeying court orders, as we are a law abiding union. No agreement was signed. We hope the intervention of the Speaker of the House of Representatives will be holistic and all issues resolved as they should be”
Osodeke said the union was not happy with the way this turn out.
“How can members be happy when they were practically forced to go back to work without issues trashed out and demands met? The best option for resolving issues like this is negotiation, but that was not done. You don’t railroad people that way. Our members will go and teach, but getting a man who is hungry, who is indebted, who is owing banks loans because his salary was not paid to be happy to teach is another thing.
“For us, if all the issues raised by us are implemented, we will see it to be fruitful. However, they have said about N300 billion has been included in next year’s budget for the revitalization of our universities, if that is done, it will greatly change our universities and it would be a product of our struggle. Nigerians should put pressure on government to release the money to the universities within the first quarter of the year. If each university gets at least N2billion to N3billion, it will go a long way to improve the situation on our campuses” He opined.
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