Latest on ASUU Strike: Nigerian Government Break Off Negotiations With Striking University Professors, Blames Opposition

The Nigerian Government has decided to break off
negotiation with the Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU) over what it called the infiltration
of the union by the opposition to discredit the
government.
The committee set up by the Federal government to negotiate with
the union had given a verdict of non-compromise on the part of
the union and the security report of the infiltration of the
opposition it decided to break the negotiation.
It was revealed that the committee had reported to the
government that the union had remained 'rigid and unbending' to
suggestions on how to agree on some of the issues it was
agitating for so as to end the strike which had entered its ninth
week.
The committee had told the government that the union leaders
were arrogant and selfish as their interest was paramount to
that of their students who had been at home all this while.
The government after the report told the committee members
that it had fresh security report that the union's stance on the
lingering crisis in the education sector was as a result of the
opposition's infiltration into the union.
It said the opposition wants to portray the government as
irrational and uncaring to the plight of the lecturers and their
students as well as present the government in bad light to
Nigerians and the international community.
The government in breaking the negotiation has decided to fund
individual student's education as it is done in advanced countries.
As a way of making nonsense of the industrial action by ASUU,
SaharaReporters gathered that the government plans to
introduce loans to the students throughout their period in the
university so as to cushion the effect of the financial hardship on
the students.
The government expects the students to re-pay the loans after
graduation provided they get jobs of their choice. It however could
not be ascertained how the loan to the students would compel the
lecturers to call off the strike.
The National President of ASUU, Dr. Nasir Fagee, had last week
during a press conference at the University of Lagos, Nigeria said
the union had pulled out of the negotiation between the union and
the Nigerian government citing insincerity as reason for its
decision, adding that the union would not call off its strike until the
agreement the government signed with the union in 2009 is
honoured.