By Uzair Adam Imam
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) promised to end its strike after meeting the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbanjabiamila.
The union, which has been on strike since February 14, disclosed this yesterday after meeting with Gbanjabiamila and some ASUU members.
The lecturers down tools to press their demand home which include the Federal Government’s failure to meeting the agreements reached with the union.
The meeting was a last-minute move to persuade the striking union and came after the Court of Appeal, Abuja, on Friday intructed the union to call off its incessant strike.
Gbanjabiamila said, “This is a recap to seal the deal on what has been a long-fought battle; a long hard road for everybody – 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 and we are more or less at the end of the road save for dotting some “I”s and crossing some “T”s.
“I believe we have covered ground, covered most of the thorny issues and it is basically, what we have agreed with ASUU is basically to put everything on paper and sign off. I believe if we had met yesterday and the papers had been drawn up, ASUU, I am sure, would have called off the strike today.
“But we only just met behind closed doors now and so we have to draw up the agreement as I have stated to you, and hopefully in the next couple of days, of course, ASUU has to get back to its bases as well. Once that is agreed, I am very hopeful and very excited about the possibility or probability the strike would be called off in a matter of days.”
“We did this for the sake of our students and children and I hope it would be a thing of the past. I thank you very much, ASUU. I also thank Nigerians for their patience, and the students, having endured these many months. But I believe that this has hopefully come to an end in a matter of days.”
The ASUU President, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, commended the House leadership for its intervention.
He said, “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.”
