Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Friday dared the  Federal Government  to go ahead with its threat to sack its members if they failed to call off the current industrial action and return to lecture rooms by December 4.

The leadership of the union insisted that the strike would not be called off on account of intimidation.
The union said that its members are ready for mass sack vowing that they will not give in to intimidations from the Federal Government.
ASUU Chairmen, University of Abuja and University of Lagos chapters, Clement Chup and Oghenekaro Ogbinaka respectively told our correspondents at separate interviews that government was adopting wrong and disappointing approaches in resolving the impasse, especially by coaxing them to call off the strike.
“Let them go ahead and open the universities if they think they can sack all of us and employ fresh lecturers; let them go ahead if they think it’s easy to sack lecturers just by mere pronouncement. Our strike is still on and we are not going to call it off until our conditions are met.
“We submitted a letter to the President, detailing conditions which should be met, let the President meet those conditions if he wants us to end our strike,”  Chup posited.
Abubakar Suleiman, also of ASUU, University of Abuja chapter said as long as the national body of the union did not given a directive that the lecturers should resume work, they would not bulge.
He said the Federal Government was at liberty to challenge their action at the industrial court, “saying our strike is still on, we are not in a hurry to call it off. As the situation is, it is only our national body that can give us directive to call off the strike.”
In the same vein, the Chairman of University of Lagos (UNILAG) chapter of ASUU,  Ogbinaka, said the union was not moved by the threat from the government.
“The minister of education that issued the threat did not call the strike one wonders what informed such disposition. We are aware of what the labour law says. Whatever, they (government) are saying, we are waiting until December 4 to see what happens.
“Nobody should be under the illusion that that ASUU can be intimidated, we have stated our demands and we are expecting the FG to comply so that things can work well,” he said.
Meanwhile the battle of wits between the Federal Government and the striking lecturers continued on Friday as the supervising Minister of Education, Nyesom Wike, met with all vice-chancellors of federal universities in Abuja.
Journalists who got wind of the meeting were however barred from attending the meeting which was held behind closed doors at the Minister’s office.
According to a reliable source at the ministry, the meeting was apparently called by the minister to discuss with the VCs modalities for carrying out the directive of re-opening the shutdown universities on the stipulated December 4 deadline by the FG.
They were said to have also deliberated on the next line of action for government should the ASUU members shun the directive.
Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission (NUC), Professor Julius Okojie, was said to have also attended the meeting.
Federal Government had on Thursday ordered an immediate re-opening of all universities shut as a result of the strike and equally threaten to sack any of the lecturers who flout the directive.
The directive according to the minister was on account of fresh conditions given by ASUU to end its industrial action which has paralysed the university system for almost five months.
Part of the conditions contained in ASUU’s letter to the Federal Government was that it should settle the four months salary owed its members as well as begin the process of releasing the N200 billion the President promised to inject into the universities within two weeks time frame.
ASUU had requested that the Attorney General of the Federation be part of the signatory to the new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the agreements recently reached between the union and the President