The Academic Staff Union of Universities has hailed the House of Representatives for its intervention in the protracted crisis between university lecturers and the Federal Government.
This is just as the Speaker of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, who briefs the leadership of ASUU about his meetings with the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), over the crisis, said he expected that the strike would be called off “in matter of days.”
Gbajabiamila and ASUU said the eight-month strike by university lecturers would soon be called off.
While Gbajabiamila said most of the issues that caused the protracted crisis between ASUU and the FG had been resolved and that the strike would end “in a matter of days,” the President of ASUU, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, said for the first time since the lecturers downed tools, “we have seen light at the end of the tunnel.”
The Speaker had called a meetings with the national leadership of ASUU about his meetings with Buhari over the crisis.
The House had intervened in the crisis during which the lawmakers held three stakeholders’ meetings, and after which the parties made a seven-point resolution which Gbajabiamila presented to the President.
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The ASUU President thanked the Speaker for his resilience and intervention, while urging the lawmakers to work with the union “and let us put a beautiful end to this thing we have started, so that every Nigerian will be proud that we have universities we can be proud of.”
Osodeke added, “We also extend our appreciation to the President for intervening. We do hope that this is the last one. I want to appeal that in future, we should not allow strike to linger. A strike should not go beyond two days. If the way the National Assembly has intervened; if we had done that long ago, from the beginning, to be allowed to do that all along; or those in charge of Labour and Education had done exactly this, we would not be where we are today. We would not have stayed more than two or three weeks in this strike.”
