The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, yesterday walked out on senators, House of Representatives members, the Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayat Rufai and her Labour counterpart, Emeka Wogu.
ASUU members, who are on an indefinite strike over a face-off with the Federal Government, staged the walkout during a meeting called by the National Assembly Joint Committee on Education to find a lasting solution to the crisis.
This is as the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP, yesterday agreed to suspend its sevenweek old strike.
The Joint Education Committee had invited both ASUU and ASUP to a meeting in order to find a way out of the strike embarked on by both unions.
The committee also invited Rufai and Wogu to the parley.
However, while the meeting between ASUP and the two ministers were still ongoing, representatives of ASUU, who were asked to wait for their turn, walked out of the premises of the National Assembly to protest what they described as undue delay and waste of their time.
The representatives of the ASUU left the National Assembly Complex in annoyance, saying they were slighted. One of the members, who declined to give his name, told newsmen that they had another appointment to attend.
Another said, “asking us to excuse them is a slight; why should they ask us to excuse them; what is it that they want to discuss that we cannot be part of.”
The lawmakers, who were oblivious of the action of the university lecturers, were astounded when they were briefed later. Also, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, Senator Uche Chukwumerije, who chaired the joint sitting, expressed anger over the action.
He, however, fixed another day for the meeting with ASUU officials. Chukwumerije said that the committee would intensify its negotiation with the government to ensure that the issues at stake were resolved.
“All we are urging is that you call an emergency meeting with 24 hours because the students are getting restive. We need to understand that if these students go out of hand, it will cause more problems for the country.
“Please trust us to keep to this two weeks we have given you to try and implement your demands,” he said. Senator Sunny Ugbuoji (PDP-Ebonyi) said it was unacceptable for ASUU to walk out on the committee as this showed a disregard for the entire parliament.
“ASUU has walked out on us and this should be said in plain terms. What meeting can be more important than this meeting?” Ugbuoji asked. Reacting to the development a member of the committee, Hon. Farouk Lawan, described ASUU members’ action as academic arrogance.
Lawan said ASUU should have been patient and waited to hear from the members and the ministers, noting that no other meeting could be more important.
He urged the committee chairmen not to relent in rescheduling another meeting with ASUU in the interest of the students who were still at home.
He described the “snub” by the ASUU representatives as not expected of university lecturers. During the meeting with polytechnic lecturers, the Joint Committee on Education was able to resolve the issue as the National President of ASUP, Dr. Chibuzor Asomugha, said his members would do everything possible to call off the strike soon.
He said: “We will try everything within our ambit to do the biddings of the National Assembly on the need for us to call off the strike soonest.”
