ASUP, Senators Meet Over 8-Month Strike

Original Post by Damilare Okunola. pmnews.com

There are strong indications that the eight-month old industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics, ASUP, will be called off soon, as the Senate Committee on Education will hold a meeting with the union today.

According to Chibuzo Asomugha, national president of the union, the meeting with the senators and other stakeholders will set the tone for their National Executive Council, NEC meeting which will hold later this week.

•ASUP President Chibuzo Asomugha

He said: “the Senate Committee on Education has called us alongside other stakeholders with a view to resolving the issue we have been pressing for over a year now.

“We shall go to Abuja for the meeting but that is not an assurance that the strike will be called off today because even if we agree to call of the strike based on certain parameters, we shall still have to communicate with our members.”

On the issue of several other polytechnics pulling out of the industrial action, Asomugha told P.M.NEWS that “I do not want to comment on that anymore because we have said several times that as much as we want most of our members to comply, we do not expect 100% compliance.

“There shall be another NEC meeting in YABATECH this week. There we shall decide finally what to do pending the outcome of our meeting with the Senators and the stakeholders.”

ASUP had on Friday, 4 October, 2013 embarked on an indefinite strike which has led to a total collapse of polytechnic education in the country.