Government officials sabotaging negotiations, says ASUU president

Emmanuel Osodeke, president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), says federal bureaucrats are “throwing wedges” into the union’s negotiations with the government.

On Monday, ASUU extended its ongoing strike by four weeks.

The strike, which the union embarked on on February 16, was reportedly due to the government’s failure to fully address its demands.

Speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, on Tuesday, Osodeke said negotiations with the government have not been fruitful owing to actions of some government officials at the federal level.

He said a worker at the National Salaries, Income and Wages Commission (NSIWC), a government establishment supervised by the ministry of finance, reportedly lied to the government that ASUU threw him out of one of the negotiations.

The ASUU president said actions like this have made negotiations with the federal government futile; hence the reason the strike lingers.

“We would finish the process and conclude negotiations, but all we would hear is that ASUU chased out some officials. one Mr Zara in National Salaries, Income and Wages, went and lied to the government that we chased him out of meetings,” he said.

“The good thing is that we have all the minutes of the meeting where he attended each of them but he went and lie to just scatter the process. That’s what they have been doing. 

“The people scattering these things, not even the political elites, are the bureaucrats. ‘Why would you tell the government that they chased you out of negotiation when you know it’s a lie.

“This is how they keep on putting wedges. We will finish and they will throw wedges on it. And that is why we are where we are today.”