ASUU Strike: FG Churning Out Fake Figures — Osodeke

President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Emmanuel Osodeke has accused the federal government of churning out fake figures concerning its demands.

Osodeke said the union is not aware of the figure being circulated by the federal government as the amount needed to resolve the strike.

ASUU president also said Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, has been misinforming President Muhammadu Buhari on the union’s strike.

President Buhari had on Monday appealed to the union to reconsider its ongoing strike and resume classroom activity, saying the strike was negatively impacting parents and students.

Reacting to the president’s plea while speaking on a Channels Television programme Thursday, Osodeke said the president’s statement showed he hadn’t been properly briefed about the strike and the union’s demands.

“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,” he said.

“It is the labour minister and his group that would have gone to the president to tell him that if 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 1.2 trillion or 2.4 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 ministry of education, so wherever they got the documents is their business,” Osodeke stated.