The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has called the federal government's bluff about the order to vice chancellors of the nation's public universities to reopen the universities for the resumption of academic activities.
The National Universities Commission, NUC, issued a circular on behalf of the government with particular instructions to the university administrations to permit students to continue their academic activities.
The National President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, responded to the direction by saying that the FG was not speaking to his members in a conversation with newsmen.
We don't have the campus's keys, he continued. No university was closed by us. It is up to those who closed the universities to determine whether or not to reopen them.
“As for us going back to work, the government is not talking to us. We did not institute the case at the industrial court, some people took us there and we have done the needful of exercising our right to appeal,” he added.
On when the appellate court would hear the matter, Osodeke said no date has been fixed yet.
Meanwhile, the Congress of University Academics, CONUA, has said its members are ready to resume duty.
The National Coordinator, Dr Niyi Sunmonu, told our correspondent that his members were never on strike.
“We did not go on strike in the first instance and we were working until the management of the universities shut down the institutions. For instance, some of our members, including me, concluded our workloads before the closure. We are only unhappy that our members were lumped up with those who went on strike and our salaries were not paid,” he said.
In a related development, non-academic staff who suspended their industrial actions in August are yet to be paid their withheld salaries.
Findings showed that though they suspended their actions for two months and subsequently resumed work, they were last paid in March, this year.
Speaking in an interview, the Chairman of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, SSANU, the University of Lagos chapter, Comrade Olusola Sowunmi, said his members expected that at least a month’s salary is paid for easy commuting between homes and their offices.
He added that the development had put his members in a tight corner.
SSANU, the Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Allied Institutions, NASU, and the National Association of Academic Technologists, NAAT, also went on strike last March but suspended action for two months in August.
Recall that ASUU has been on strike since February 14 following the alleged refusal of the FG to fulfil an agreement it entered with it in 2009.