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 was not aware of the figure circulated by the Federal Government as the amount needed to resolve its five -month-old industrial action.
He also accused Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, of misinforming President Muhammadu Buhari on the union’s strike.
Buhari had on Monday told the striking lecturers that ‘enough is enough’ and that they should return to the classroom as their action was inimical to parents, students and the future of the country.
Osodeke, who reacted to the President’s statement on a television programme, yesterday, said he was not being 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. It is the labour minister and his group that would have gone to the president to tell him that we chased out his people, we refuse salary.
“We are not aware of where their so-called figure was arrived at. In all our agreements and discussions, we didn’t talk about N1.2 trillion or N2.4 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.”