By AMAKA ABAYOMI, DAYO ADESULU, LAJU ARENYEKA & WINIFRED BINOGU

Today should have marked the end of the ultimatum given by the Supervising Minister of Education, Barr. Nyesom Wike to members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, to either defy the 5 month-old strike embarked upon by the union and resume duties or get sacked.

While some universities have aligned in response to the Federal Government’s directive, many others remain unshaken.

At the University of Lagos, UNILAG, academic activities have not begun.

Although there was the presence of academic staff on the campus, investigations carried out by Vanguard Learning revealed that the lecturers on campus are mostly residents.

Fresh students were however, sighted at different places on campus participating in admission screening, which has been going on for several weeks.

*Law lecture theater, University of Ibadan

At the Lagos State University, LASU, there were barely any students – fresh or otherwise. Vanguard Learning gathered that ASUU-LASU is not ready to bow to the Federal Government’s threat.

The situation is the same at the University of Ibadan; apart from the supervision of Doctorate and Masters thesis, academic activities on the campus are non-existent.

According to Professor Adeniyi Togun, a lecturer at University of Ibadan, the situation on campus after the pronouncement of Minister of Education remains the same.

He said: “ASUU is holding a meeting soon to decide the next line of action. The only activity on campus is the supervision of Post Graduates and Master thesis.

“Some of the Professors who do this do so because they want to. We were not mandated by anybody to do so.”

Even beyond the south west zone, the situation is relatively the same in the north.

ASUU’s Secretary, University of Abuja chapter, Abubakar Suleiman told Vanguard Learning that the conditions given by the union before the strike would be suspended are still real and insisted that the union would not compromise its stand on account of intimidation by government.

He said the directive by government to reopen the universities as acting as if the country was in a military era.

According to Suleiman, “The Minister can run his mouth and make any pronouncement for all we care, the strike is still on and we are not going to call it off on account of intimidation.

“We are not raising any fresh demands, we only gave government conditions to ensure that our members who participated in the strike are not victimised.”

In Kano, it was grave yard silence on the two campuses of the Bayero University Kano, as thousands of student refused to heed the Federal Government order directing them to resume school following the breakdown in negation with ASUU.

At old campus, lecture theaters remained empty as there were no students on campus.

Similarly, the same scenario was obtained at the new campus located along Kano – Gwarzo road was empty, as no students were seen around.

Also, students of the Kano state owned University of Technology, Wudil near Kano was also empty, unlike their BUK counterpart, no lecturers turned up as directed by the Federal Government.