A Girl's ear was bitten off during a fight with her neighbour in ikorodu Lagos

A Lagos State Polytechnic student named Bola had her right ear bitten off by her neighbour during a fight this past Monday October 20th at her residence in Ikorodu Lagos state. According to an eye-witness to the fight, the other lady allegedly hid the ear in her mouth for a few minutes after biting if off. She then spit it out and stepped on it as people were looking for it. Anyway, she was later arrested and the case is now being handled by the police force at First Gate in Ikorodu. "Bola" is recovering at the hospital Now and we have no pics from our Intel...

Photo by: Lindaikeji

ASUU Strike 2013 Update: Majority of Union Branches Vote to End Strike

The ASUU strike 2013 continues, but the latest update is that the majority of union branches voted in meetings on Monday to end the strike.

It was the first time members of the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities met after the marathon meeting between union leadership and President Goodluck Jonathan.

Now the branch leaders will meet on Wednesday in Kano to decide whether to end the strike, based on the branch decisions. So far, incoming results indicate that the clear majority have voted for the strike to end.

Following the meeting with Jonathan, union leadership had pledged to take the deal Jonathan offered to union members.

A source told The Punch that a key component of the deal was the government promising to inject N1.1 trillion into public universities over five years. That amounts to N220 billion every year, beginning in 2014. An additional N100 billion would be for 2013.

One Nigerian Naira equals one cent in U.S. dollars.

The money would be released every quarter, processed through the Central Bank of Nigeria, and the National Universities Commission and the Trade Union Congress would be the joint guarantors of the agreement, with the minister of education as the implementation officer.

The union’s only demands are that the government have all monetary and regulatory agencies sign the injection agreement, a source told NGTrends.com.

“The reason we will ensure this is that we don’t want argument tomorrow that the agreement was entered in error or that they don’t know the implication of signing the agreement,” the source said. “If possible, documents that will provide for automatic deduction of the agreed money at a particular/agreed date must be provided.”

UPDATE: News from the meetings on Monday as it comes through

-The union branch at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka voted to end the strike–but only if salaries are paid to the lecturers for the time they didn’t work during the strike, reported the Citizen. The branch will continue the strike with or without the national body, branch president Dr. Ifeanyichukwu Abada said.

-Other branches joining in a call to end the strike are, according to the Campus Times and Daily Times:

The University of Ibadan

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

Uthman Dan Fodio University Sokoto

Federal University of Technology MINNA

The University of Lagos

The University of Calabar

Federal University of Technology Akure

Ekiti State University

Imo State University

Bayero University Kano

Delta State University

Federal University of Technology Owerri

-The branch at the University of Jos voted for the strike to continue, reported the Nation. Dr. David Jankam, chairman of the chapter, said that branch members thought that what was discussed between President Jonathan and the union leadership avoided the main issues of the strike. “I will now convey the resolve of our branch to our national president in our NEC meeting scheduled for this week,” he said. “If the majority of the chapter voted for call off, it will be called off, but if majority of chapters voted for continuation, so be it.”

-The University of Benin also wants the strike to continue

ASUU Strike: Universities To Resume 18th Nov 2013.

Yes! Pack your bags!A source close to top guns in the Academic Staff Union Of Universities (ASUU) has toldThe City Reporters the lecturers will ditch their four month old strike this weekend so students could resume on November 18 (next Monday).
The source said there was no way the union could reject the new offer of N220bn a year tabled by President Goodluck Jonathan during amarathon meetingwith ASUU last week Tuesday.ASUU had come out of that meeting to tell Nigerians it needed time to deliberate on the new deal and reach a consensus among it members before talking to the press.A top official of the union, has however said the government could not be trusted even on the new offer, and that ASUU’s members were divided over thegovernment’s offer. He, however raised a beam of hopeby saying the majority still decided to give the government the benefit of the doubt.As ASUU executives meet this Wednesday, if the fate of the strike is down to a vote among the striking lecturers, as suggested by ASUU chairman, Nasir Fagge, the four month old impasse may surely end this week.ASUU went on strike July 1 over the non-implementation of a 2009 agreement it had with the government with a key component of the memorandum of understanding the allocation of26% of Nigeria’s total budget toeducation.Although the government is planning to allocate just 9% of the 2014 budget to education, ASSU now seems set to end thestrike after government offers that would surely boost lecturers’ take home pay and improve varsity infrastructure.

ASUU strike: Union may call it off on Thursday

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, may call off its over four-months’ strike on Thursday, DailyPost has gathered.

It has been revealed that the Union’s plan is to suspend the strike after the National Executive Committee of the body meets on Wednesday night to deliberate over the outcome of the congresses held in over 50 universities across the country on the new offer extended to ASUU by the Federal Government.

The Union leadership had after its meeting with the Federal Government delegation last week promised to take President Jonathan’s message to all members and resolve on whether to call off the strike or not.

The ASUU leadership had since then briefed the zonal coordinators on the offer, and consequently directed the local branches to organise congress meetings between Friday last week and Tuesday (tomorrow) to deliberate on the new offer and make their final position known this week.

However, information gathered from the different Universities after their various congresses showed that the lecturers are now willing to call off the strike, even though they are unsure of government’s commitment to abide by the terms of the new agreement. Some of the lecturers that spoke with DailyPost have disclosed that the strike may be suspended this Thursday.


Meanwhile, the Ibadan Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Dr. Nasir Adesola, has confirmed that the NEC meeting has been scheduled to hold on Wednesday. However, he did not disclose whether the strike would be called off after the meeting or not.

“Yes, the NEC will hold on Wednesday evening, but ASUU has a process which we are going to follow. NEC reserves the right to call off the strike after due consultation with members and this is why congresses are being called in all the chapters of the union. Please, wait till after the congress,” he  disclosed.

Sources have revealed to DailyPost that most of the lecturers have argued that the strike be called off, having seen the President’s commitment. They have said that the new agreement has been made public with the involvement of President Jonathan, hence the need to call off the strike. They have argued that such an agreement cannot be twisted even at the long run.

ASUU Under Pressure To End Strike

Following last Monday’s meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and the Academic Union of Universities (ASUU), the later has come under mounting pressure to call off its four-month-old strike.

The federal government had promised to inject N1.1 trillion into public varsities in the next five years.

A zonal chairman of the union who spoke on condition of anonymity said the union has come under pressure to end the strike. He said some of the zonal chairmen feel the union would lose public sympathy if the strike is not called off after the offer by President Jonathan.

He said, “Most of our members don’t trust the government. They don’t want any more promises. Though the president has given his word, our members are waiting to see the money released. Though somebody had deliberately leaked to the media that the government will to give N1.1 trillion to ASUU and this has put more pressure on the union, but also remember that the 2009 agreement is for N1.3 trillion.”

Meanwhile, parents and students who spoke to LEADERSHIP said they expect ASUU to call of the strike following the meeting with President Jonathan.

Mrs Evelyn Isuku, an Abuja resident said, “I expect ASUU to call off the strike before the end of the week. At least the government has promised to heed to their demands. What else are they waiting for?”

Another resident, Okoye, said, “Our children have been at home for too long. If ASUU won’t listen to the president, then I don’t know who else will help to resolve the issue”.

Members of the ASUU staged a walkout in July over claims that the government had failed to implement a 2009 agreement to improve their welfare and upgrade facilities on state-run campuses.

THE about five-month-old strike embarked upon by members of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) may be called off next week.

It was gathered that the union would conclude consultations with its members and may resume class soon.

The union, it was also gathered, had asked the Federal Government to slash across board, salaries of National Assembly members, ministers and other political office holders by 2014.

The demand was placed on the Federal Government at a marathon meeting leadership of the union held with President Goodluck Jonathan and other key government officials at the Presidential Villa, on Monday.

ASUU president, Dr Nasir Isa Fagge, could not confirm this, as calls put to him on his mobile line were unsuccessful, but ASUU source told the Nigerian Tribune in Abuja that the demand formed part of their deliberations on Monday to early hours of Tuesday.

The source said ASUU had suggested this based on the complaint by the Federal Government that it had no money to implement all aspects of the 2009 agreement as demanded.

Nigerian Tribune, however, gathered that branch chairmen of the ASUU had been directed to brief their members on the offer by President Jonathan, which is largely an addition of N20 billion to the N200 billion already agreed upon with Vice President Namadi Sambo to be released to universities annually.

According to the fresh pact, the Federal Government had agreed to release N220 billion yearly to the public universities, beginning from 2014 till the next five years. 

It was also gathered that the meeting adopted the accord struck by the vice president with the union, on the need to increase the N30 billion already released for the payment of academic earned allowance to N40 billion.

According to sources, government also agreed that the N40 billion should be regarded only as first instalment, and not a once-and-for-all payment.

At the meeting, the government assured that it would, among other things, revamp the public universities by ensuring that all those issues that always led to strike were dealt with once and for all.

ASUU president had, after the meeting, told reporters that his team would take back the message of President Jonathan to  varsity teachers before a decision would be taken on the next line of action.

Asuu Strike Update: A letter to Mr. President M

Mr. President,
Please do not mistake this piece for an attack on your person because it is not. Neither would I want you to see me as one of those attention-seeking people because I am not. Of course, Sir, I am also not the son of any governor, senator, local government chairman or any political office holder, otherwise, I would have no business writing such an open letter to you because it is against my family’s ethics to ‘talk while eating’.

I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness of educational misery, saying, “Prepare the way for either a future of political stability and economic boom or prepare for worse than what religious extremists are meting out to our country now”.

As I write on this sultry day, I am completely at a loss to know what to make of my future from here.

If this were just the case, it would, probably, be an insignificant reason to go on the rampage with the sword of the pen.
But, I write on behalf of the millions of dreams that are getting squashed by the day as the total shut-down of our universities persists. I write on behalf of the future of the several hundreds of thousands who have been privileged, amidst the stiff competition for admission, to grasp tertiary education but may end up worse than their disadvantaged counterparts, since they may never finish, much less finish on schedule their educational pursuits. The handwriting on the wall, clearly now, more than ever before foretells a dangerous twist to the continuing imbroglio between your administration
and the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU). I do not know if the public keeps the date as much as we do but it is well over 65 days already and I cannot help but wonder if anyone really cares what becomes of our street-wandering undergraduates. If I had a next life, I hope to never be a Nigerian or be born with a silver spoon because the poor are really just ‘on their own’ as long as our government is concerned.

Mr President, in three simple words, “We are tired”.
We, the students in the federal universities, are always at the receiving end of every impasse between ASUU and the government and all I can ask for now is that you and your think tank reconsider your stand on the matter. We can only bear this much! I am not ASUU’s spokesman but it is only logical that I expect your administration to honour the 2009 agreement with the Union so normalcy can return to our campuses and of course, our disenchanted academic lives.

Personally, I have spent more years than is required to have my first and second degrees and yet I am grappling to take a Bachelor’s degree out of an institution that only recently had an internal strike because you would have our name ‘rebranded’.
Mr President, every day this strike continues, more dreams die and more future riff -raff are born. It is my firm belief that children still do bear the sins of their fathers and even when you are no more, posterity will remember your progenitors for good or ill based on how you handle this national educational crisis we suffer now. It goes without saying that for 14 years that your party has held sway over the affairs of this nation, we cannot boast of a Nigerian university (not a single one)
amongst the first 2000 in the world. This is more than enough reason to release the requisite fund for the upgrade of our educational infrastructure as well as the welfare of the future’s moulders.

It will only be emphatic to say that we can get out of our educational system as much as we invest in it and though investment in educational is long term, it is also long- rewarding. Your administration will only be breeding poor intellectuals, who will, in turn, produce another generation of mediocre graduates and in 10 years, what do we have, sir? A national carnage! Our unborn children are in jeopardy of being societal scum even before their conception. But you can change all of this!

The greatest weapon of mass destruction is to put a teacher who knows nothing before the students.
This will be the case if your administration does not honour the 2009 agreement with ASUU such that lecturers’ welfare gets taken care of. Mr President, the one second of your time which I asked for is almost up but I am optimistic that if you give utmost diligence to putting an end to the incessant strikes that have been plaguing our tertiary educational system as much as you do to security matters or party issues and conventions, we would not be where we are today: struggling to maintain peace in our land.

I reiterate my advice, sir. Honour the 2009 agreement with ASUU so we may return to our lecture rooms and pick up the pieces of our scattered semesters. So I can round off my first degree programme and go on to patriotically serve my fatherland. So, I can focus on growing my baby company to maturity and provide jobs for the teeming unemployed youths. So, I can get married, give my mother her first grandchild and keep my father’s name.

So, I can fulfil my dreams of helping young people reach the zenith of their potential through my writing, public speaking and role-modelling. Mr President, help me and my fellow undergraduates live decent lives even if our parents are not among the top one per cent who squander our national earnings in the name of political office holders.

Would you do this for me, for us, for Nigeria’s future? I hope you do. Thank you, sir, for giving me a second of your time.