Supervisory minister of Education, Nyesom Wike has threatened members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities with sack if they refuse to resume by December 4th.
Addressing journalists in Abuja, Wike said, “Vice-chancellors should ensure that staff who resume for work are provided with the enabling environment for academic and allied activities.
“Any academic employee who fails to resume on or before December 4, 2013 automatically ceases to be an employee of the institution.
“Vice-chancellors are also directed to advertise vacancies (internal and external) in their institutions.
“The National Universities Commission is hereby directed to monitor the compliance of these directives by the various institutions.”
He said government was forced to take the decision in the best interest of the country after being faced with outrageous new demands from ASUU.
Wike said, “To start with, the agreement you (ASUU) said the Federal Government should comply with, was it the AGF that signed it? It was signed by the Federal Ministry of Education led by the Permanent Secretary. The AGF was not even part of the negotiation.
“We have made every effort to see that students go back to their schools. Each time government made frantic effort, you would hear one reason or the other(from ASUU). For us, we cannot continue to see this thing happens. We will continue to make sure that we stick to all we have agreed to do.
“If you cannot believe Mr. President, then who would you discuss with again? Mr. President cannot sit down for 13 hours having a discussion and at the end of the day the only thing you can do is to attach some new conditions.
“I don’t think that is acceptable to us. All we have promised them, we are going to do; we won’t go back. But bringing new conditions, we don’t think it is favourable. We don’t think it is for the good of this country.”
Wike said government had made many concessions to ASUU, including providing N10 billion extra allowances in addition to N30 billion already released.
“We all agreed. ASUU said we should put the resolution down. That was done and signed by the permanent secretary,” he said.
“The Federal Government has met all its commitments and obligations with respect to the 2009 Agreement. We appeal to all stakeholders to appreciate the position of the government which is in the best interest of our dear country.”
“As a responsible government, we cannot allow the continuous closure of our public universities for this length of time as this poses danger to the education system, the future of our youths and national development”, he added.
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