Senate Sets A Task Force To Resolve ASUP Dispute

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In a bid to break the two-month old strike of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP), Senate yesterday set up a task force to resolve the dispute. Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, Uche Chukwumerije, disclosed this to Daily Sun in Abuja.

He expressed optimism that the industrial action would soon be resolved as “all stakeholders in the dispute have tabled their demands and there seems to be headway in the negotiations…”
Last Tuesday’s meeting in Abuja was the third the Senate is wading into the dispute; having met with ASUP and the Education Minister, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa’i twice last month.

But a source on the Education Committee, however, told Daily Sun that in furtherance of the Senate’s intervention, the Ministers of Education and Labour, together with ASUP officials met with the task force on Tuesday where the striking polytechnic teachers tabled their conditions.

The source said inability to resolve the dispute before now was because of some conditions tabled by ASUP but which is now being resolved by all the stakeholders. “ASUP insisted that polytechnics should be fully involved in NIPPIS. They want to be consulted. They also demanded implementation of CONTISS 15 as well as the resuscitation of Visitation Panels.

“ASUP also demanded that the Federal Government must complete the appointment of governing boards for polytechnics. The officials said that some of the governing boards are already in place but that there remained about five or six remaining to be filled. The ASUP also wanted a more participatory approach to evolving policies which affects polytechnics…”

With regards to the ASUU’s indefinite industrial action, Daily Sun gathered that, “preliminary discussions have started. We will soon meet with the officials but the committee is disappointed that ASUU didn’t put us into confidence before going on strike…”