The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said it’s decision to suspend it’s two weeks warning strike was due to the genuineness in the negotiating team as well as a “useful and encouraging engagement” with key stakeholders especially leadership of the National Assembly.

Taking a swipe at the government over claims that almost all demands put forward by ASUU had been met, President of ASUU, Prof. Chris Piwuna who insisted that the government had lied, added that “the Ministry of Education has failed woefully in addressing our issues.”

He said: “That’s not true. They haven’t met any large chunk of the demand. It is because the government team desires that we bring this matter to a close and we see the genuineness in the team.that’s why we’ve decided.

“Our decision was not informed in any way by the actions of the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education has failed woefully in addressing our issues and we hope that this suspension will give them an opportunity to go back and look at these items.

“The third-party deductions that we talked about, our pension, promotion arrears, all these things they promised to do, they have not done any. So Nigerians would even wonder, if that is the case, why are we suspending the action? But we are suspending the action because we have seen goodwill on the part of the government team and the appeal by individuals.

“The Deputy Senate President personally discussed this matter with us and NLC and honestly, we think it will also help our students and their parents that they see that we are happy to come back to work. We are ready to resolve this matter and if it is looked from that perspective, I think even our members will understand why we had to take this decision.

Piwuna who spoke to newsmen after announcing suspension of the strike on Wednesday in Abuja, noted that some progress has been made in resolving issues raised by the union.

“We’ve been meeting with the government, we met twice since the warning strike started, after we gave ultimatum and our assessment is that we’ve made some progress with the IALM committee. We reported that to our members.

“They of course, had some reservations because there were items that were supposed to be timed, which the Minister of Education was unable to deliver on. But when we took the entire issues, we realized that we’ve made some progress and we also believe that there are individuals or groups that have asked us to reconsider continuing with the action.

“The Senate of the Federal Republic was one. We also had massive support from the Nigerian Labour Congress and they also understand that the point has been made and that we have the capacity to go full throttle.

“And so, since we have achieved that by bringing government team back on the table to present to us their own position on this matter, we think that it’s about time we suspend the action.”

ASUU President stated that it’s decision to suspend the warning strike had nothing to do with government’s no work, no pay policy that was invoked against members of the union saying, “it was a non-issue to us. It was not something that played any role in our decisions.”

He criticised the education minister for taking the decision as he noted “whether it is lack of advice, we really can’t place our fingers on why the Ministry of Education took that action on day one which shows bad faith. They were not ready to discuss with us and so they decided they were going to issue threats.

“Well, we were not threatened. We’ve taken this action based on those who have appealed to us and we believe that this atmosphere is suitable, is conducive for our further discussions and we hope that government would see this as an olive branch extended by our union to government.

“There are timelines and we hope that those timelines, those items will determine what would happen after one month. They’ve given us a counter offer to what we initially presented to them.

This is the very first time since 2017 that government is coming back to the table with an offer, a counter, a position on all the issues that we addressed. From Babalakin to Munzali Jibril to Nimi Briggs, this is the very first time in eight years that they are bringing an offer back to us and we want to thank those that have made this possible.”

Piwuna who disclosed that 89 branches that attended it’s meeting rejected government’s 35% salary offer, expressed optimism it would be sorted out at the next meeting scheduled for 28th of October, 2025.

“The item particularly on our salary was rejected by all the 89 branches that attended this meeting. No single branch thought that the 35% offer was sufficient.

“It’s a total rejection, but we believe that it can be sorted out on the table. The issue of tax in our allowances was also one sore point in our discussion with them.

“We also realize that this counter offer was discussed with the president and commander-in-chief and he’s aware. We hope that he will follow up on what his people are doing to ensure that these things are brought to a conclusion.”