Following Federal Government’s referral of the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ (ASUU) to the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) for adjudication, the union has said even if the court succeeds in forcing them to return to school, there was no way the court could force them to teach with an open mind.

President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, who made this position known yesterday in Abuja at a National Town Hall Meeting on Tertiary Education tagged: ‘The Locked Gates of our Citadels -A National Emergency,’ warned that the students would definitely be at the receiving end.

Osodeke noted that ASSU was willing to end its seven-month old strike once concrete agreements were reached with the Federal Government by putting a proposal on the table and were willing to negotiate constructively.

He said: “On all these issues, we have given the government a minimum that we can accept, but they have not responded on the issue of revitalisation, on the issue of earned allowance and on issues that we have all discussed. We negotiated and agreed that they should sign and this is very simple, not more than one day. “On UTAS and IPPIS, we say release the report of the test you did and let’s look at the one who came first and take it as we agreed.

So we have given them the minimum we want and we have to come down and they can do it in one day if there is a will. “If the government loves this country, these children and their parents, then they should come to the table and let us resolve these issues in one day.

“Just as we did in 2014, they should come and ensure that we do that, we can even have the meeting openly so that Nigeria will see what we are discussing.