ASUU agrees to suspend strike, states three conditions

According to reports from the Nigerian Eye,
Nigerian university lecturers have agreed to
end the five-month old strike, if the federal
government says yes to three of it conditions. These conditions will be made known to
President Goodluck Jonathan today and if all
parties come to agreement, the strike will be
called off. ASUU has forbidden its local chapters and zonal
chairman from talking to the media, until the
end of the session. But a source, who was part
of the ASUU session, which was held at
Mambayya House in Kano, revealed the
conditions as: •Commitment from the President that any
review or reconsideration or renegotiation of
the 2009 Agreement will not substantially
affect the pact which is the cause of the
ongoing strike; •Immediate payment of all outstanding salary
arrears and allowances of varsity teachers
without victimization; and •A written commitment from the President that
the Federal Government will commit
N225billion annually to the funding of
universities for the next four years. There is a fourth condition, which is said to be
“personal” to ASUU. The source said: “Our leaders are meeting with
the President on Monday to table these
conditions. Once the President accepts these
three terms, the strike will be called off. “In principle, members voted about 60-40 per
cent to call off the strike, but they added a
caveat – that ASUU leaders should extract a
commitment (signed and sealed) from the
President.” It became imperative for ASUU to makes these
demands, as it became obvious that the FG
wanted the 2009 Agreement to be
renegotiated. “If ASUU had accepted to renegotiate the entire
Agreement , it means there will be no basis for
the ongoing strike. The worst that can happen
is either having the abridged version of the
2009 Agreement or a phased implementation of
the document,” the source added.