The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has stated that the union is ready to negotiate with government toward ending its one-week old industrial action. This was disclosed by the President of the union Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, who was a guest on TVC News Breakfast show on Tuesday. He frowned at the attitude of the FG towards the demands of the lecturers.

According to him, the letters sent to the Federal Government through the ministries of education and Labour since November 5th notifying them of the strike is yet to be replied.

“We wrote to inform the ministries that we had resumed our strike. We told them that we had resumed the strike we suspended in Sept. 2017 because government failed to implement agreements we signed. “The ministries signed to acknowledge receipt of the copies we gave them, but none has written a reply to us,” he said.

Ogunyemi further stated that it is quite suprising that observed that the federal government, which had consistently allocated seven per cent to education in the last two years, suddenly woke up from slumber and announced a state of emergency in the education sector and promised to allocate 15 per cent of its budget to the sector. He said that the union finds this unbelievable and deceitful. “We feel that the `sudden’ promise has more to do with the fact that we are in an election year,” he emphasised.

He alleged that the ruling class in Nigeria had no concern for the education of the poor.