ASUU strike ends in days as Gbajabiamila, House leadership forge agreement with lecturers
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, said the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, may end its eight-month old strike in matters of days.
Gbajabiamila spoke after the leadership of the House held a crucial meeting withgbe ASUU in Abuja on Tuesday.
The Speaker is meeting President Muhammadu Buhari later, but added that the leadership of the striking lecturers is set to sign an agreement to end the dispute based on the recommendations by the House that were presented to the President.
The Speaker believed having received the House recommendations on the issue, President Buhari would on Tuesday make a pronouncement towards the final resolution of the issue.
Gbajabiamila expressed delight that Buhari’s disposition to the House’s intervention was positive.
He said: “I have visited the President twice.
“We spoke with Mr. President.
“There was one of the sticking points: the issue of no work, no pay.
“The President did ask to digest the recommendations and would have one more meeting, which we did on Friday after the budget presentation.
“That meeting was even better than the first one we had with him and Mr. President has agreed to certain things, but I’m not going to talk about that now.
“He would disclose whatever it is tomorrow (Tuesday) on that one remaining issue.
“But beyond that, the other issues have been taken care of.
“We were able to make sure that what ASUU was asking for in terms of the Revitalisation Fund, in terms of salary, there has been significant improvement.
“Revitalisation has been provided for in the budget.
“We made sure of that.
“The salary structure has been looked at.
“And there’s been an improvement as well and we made sure of that.
“The issue of UTAS is another important issue.
“Both ASUU and the Office of the Accountant General and the government have agreed that they would work together to resolve the peculiarities of UTAS required for the payment plan and IPPIS.
“They will sit down together.
“And the Chairman of the House Committee on Tertiary Education will also be part of that tripartite sit-down arrangement to include all those things that are required by ASUU in the IPPIS platform.
“So I believe we’ve covered ground, we’ve covered most of the thorny issues and what we have agreed with ASUU now is basically to put everything on paper and sign off.
“I believe if we had met yesterday and the papers had been drawn up, I’m sure ASUU would have called off the strike today.
“But we’ve only just met today.
“As I have stated, hopefully in the next couple of days, of course, once ASUU gets back to its base as well, once that is agreed, I’m very hopeful and very excited about the possibility or probability that the strike will be called off in a matter of days.”
Gbajabiamila was grateful to the union’s leadership for allowing the House leadership to make an input towards a lasting solution to the crisis.
In the same vein, the President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Sodeke, who led other members of the union to the meeting, was happy that the Speaker superintended over the signing of the agreement to end the strike.
Osodeke said: “My union operates bottom-up.
“We don’t take decisions without their consent.
“So we have agreed that between now and tomorrow, we are going to get some documentation signed so that we can take them to our members, and we will do that as quickly as possible in the interest of Nigerians and the students so that this can be resolved as soon as possible.
“From what we have seen today, I think for the first time since our actions started, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Osodeke expressed optimism that the end of the strike is in sight.