• We are not aware of two months strike – MAPOLY ASUP
Ifedayo Ogunyemi and Olasunkanmi Akinlotan
Against the backdrop of rumours circulated via the online media on Saturday and Sunday morning that the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) will continue the strike action for another two months, Press Club MAPOLY has reliably gathered that such rumour is not true.
National Publicity Secretary of the union, Adebanjo Ogunsipe told Press Club MAPOLY on Sunday that such information is not true.
Also, the Chairman of the MAPOLY chapter of the union, Kola Abiola in a telephone interview with Press Club MAPOLY on Sunday dismissed such directive.
Several departmental associations in the institution had quoted a source in the MAPOLY chapter of ASUP that the strike will continue on Monday because the union has made it necessary.
Abiola swiftly said he was not informed of such directive. He stated that he was only aware of the warning strike which ended on Friday.
When asked if there is any move to continue the strike action after the warning strike, the chapter chairman said the National Executive Committee of the union has not decided.
“I don’t have any information concerning that. I am only aware of the five days warning strike and five days have come and gone.
“I don’t know about that. Our NEC has not decided. We were only instructed about the warning strike.”
It would be recalled that polytechnics nationwide embarked on a five-day warning strike on January 30th and ended on Friday, February 3rd following a directive from the National President of the union, Usman Dutse after an emergency meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC).
The issues in contention include the non-implementation of the report of the NEEDS Assessment report which as at July 2014 revealed that public polytechnics and Colleges of Technology in Nigeria require injection of minimum of N652.6million to address the rot in infrastructure in the sector.
