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From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Emmanuel Osodeke has said that federal bureaucrats are sabotaging the union’s negotiations with the government.
ASUU on Monday extended its six months long strike by another four weeks.
The union embarked on an industrial action in February because of government’s failure to fully address its demands bothering on condition of service, earned allowances, university fundings, payments system amongst others.
Speaking on aTelevision programme, on Tuesday, Osodeke said negotiations with the government have been futile due to behavior of some government officials at the federal level.
According to him, 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 fruitless and further stretching the strike.
He said, “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.
“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.”
