The Academic Staff Union of Universities National President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, on Thursday said the union was not aware of the N1.2tn negotiation with Federal Government.
There have been speculations that ASUU mentioned it would need N1.2tn from the government to meet the demands of its members.
However Prof. Osedeke, debunk this. He also accused the minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige for not giving the President proper information about the ongoing strike by the union.
In a statement by the Federal government on Wednesday, the director, press and public relations in the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Olajide Oshundu, claimed Prof. Lim Brigge-led in a proposal demanded that the members of the ASUU and other union of the university would need the sum of N1.2tn to implement.
Inlandtown also reported on Thursday how President Muhammadu Buhari called on ASUU, urging them to ensure that the educational sector of the country is reset as it is taking a toll on students and other stakeholders.
Speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television Programme on Thursday, Osodoko said if the President had been properly briefed, He would have not made such misinformed statement.
READ MORE : Prof Osodeke – ASUU Will Call Off Strike Once FG Signs The Agreement
In reference to the negotiation, ASUU president clarified that the union was not aware of the figures being circulated by the federal government or how they arrived at those figures.
Osodeke said:
“If the President had been properly briefed by the committee through the Minister of Education, I don’t think the President would have said ‘enough is enough, go to your class while we are negotiating.’
It is the Labour Minister and his group that would have gone to the President to tell him that we chase out his people, we refuse salary.
We are not aware of where their so-called figure arrives from. In all our agreement and discussion, we didn’t talk about N1.2 trillion or N2.4 trillion, or whatever. We didn’t.
We didn’t calculate the quantum of what we would need. We calculated what each member of our union will earn.
If this man who is telling you this figure can tell a lie that ASUU chased out his members from the negotiation table, why would he not tell a lie about the figure?
The ministry is churning out fake figures. We negotiated with the Education Ministry, so wherever they got the documents is their business.”
