The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) may call off its eight-month-old strike in a few days as it said “there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
Emmanuel Osedeke, president of ASUU gave this indication at a meeting between the union and Femi Gbajabimila, speaker of the House of Representatives in Abuja on Monday.
He said the union officials met briefly behind closed doors with the speaker and took note of the grounds covered by the Federal Government and they will return to their members between today (Monday) and tomorrow (Tuesday) to take the final decision.
Osedeke said: “We have actually met briefly in the speaker’s office and looked at all issues and he briefed us. We have taken note of what they have covered. But you know – we operate a bottom-up approach as a union: we don’t take decisions on their behalf without having their consent.
“So we have agreed that between now and tomorrow (Tuesday), we are going to get some documentation signed and talk to our members. We will do that as quickly as possible in the interest of all of us Nigerians and the students so that this thing can be resolved.
“From what we have seen today, for the first time since this our action started, we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel and we hope this time around there will not be an attempt by person or group to create something that will make us run into anything again. We hope that this will be the final in the interest of our children.
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“We hope that working together in the next few days we will put an end to this particular imbroglio in the Nigerian educational system.”
Osodeke said the union’s struggle was in the interest of the Nigerian university system to meet global standards, adding that if the ministers of education and labour had done what the House of Representatives has done, the strike would not have lingered up to a month.
“Our struggle, thank God the National Assembly is joining us, is for the educational system in Nigeria. We want to have a university in Nigeria where we have money from students all over the world and pay in hard currency so that system will grow. That is why we are in this struggle. We want to have a university where the remuneration is enough to attract lecturers from all over the world just as our people are going out.
“As we speak today, we are having a problem; we don’t notice it, we are creating so many universities but there are no good people, qualified people to teach in those universities but the good ones are leaving. We just put people there, which is not good enough.
“So Mr. Speaker I want to sincerely thank you for your intervention. Please let all of us work together with the House of Representatives. Let’s put a beautiful end to this thing we have started so that every Nigerian will be proud that we have universities that we will be proud of.
“I want to appeal that in the future, we should not allow a strike to linger. A strike should not go beyond two days. If the way the National Assembly has intervened, if you have done that long ago from the beginning, or those who are in charge of labour and education have done exactly this, we will not be where we are today.
Earlier, the speaker, Gbajabimila also expressed hope that the strike would be called off in a matter of days as ASUU and the Federal Government has shifted grounds such as the provision of N470 billion for salaries and revitalisation in the 2023 budget.
He said: “This is a recap to seal the deal on what has been a long-fought battle, long hard road for everybody both for ASUU, the students and the government. As you would recall, some weeks ago the House got involved in this crisis and we had long, tough, intense meetings with ASUU. We had meetings with those on the government side and we are happy to report that as the result of the consultation and intervention of the House, very significant progress has been made, save for dotting some “I”s and crossing some “T”s,” Gbajabiamila said.
“As you heard Mr President say during his budget presentation. He appealed to ASUU to go back to class and that N470 billion total has been included in the budget. Another important issue both ASUU and the office of the accountant-general and government have agreed that they will work together and the peculiarities of UTAS that are required for the payment platform – IPPIS, they would sit down together and the chairman of the committee on tertiary education will also be part of that tripartite arrangement to include all those things that are required by ASUU in the IPPIS platform.
