ASUU hopeful strike will end in matter of days

After eight months of stalled negotiations with the Federal Government, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Monday expressed hope that its industrial action will end “in the next few days”.

“We hope that working together, in the next few days, we can put an end to this particular imbroglio in the Nigerian educational system,” ASUU President, Emmanuel Osodeke, said at a meeting with the Femi Gbajabiamila-led House of Representatives.

Lecturers of public universities have been on strike since February 14, 2022, over poor welfare and unpaid Earned Academic Allowance.

Gbajabiamila had on Friday said the country would soon hear from President Muhammadu Buhari on the protracted ASUU strike.

Gbajabiamila, who met with the President at the State House for the second time in one week over the ASUU strike, said discussions with the President were fruitful, adding that Buhari would make known his decisions to the public after reviewing the lawmakers’ recommendations.

On Monday at a meeting with Gbajabiamila and other members of the green chamber, Osodeke said urged the lawmakers to work alongside university lecturers to end the imbroglio.

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He said, “Please, let all of us work together to put a beautiful end to this end to this thing we have started so that every Nigerian will be proud that we have universities we can be proud of.

“Once again, I want to thank you. I also extend our appreciation to the president for intervening, I want to appeal that in the future, we should not allow strikes to linger. The strike should not go beyond two days.

“If the way the National Assembly has intervened if we had done that long ago, 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 on this strike. There is strike all over the world — UK, US, all over — but they don’t allow it to last.”

The Court of Appeal in Abuja had on Friday ordered the striking lecturers to resume duty immediately.

Counsel for ASUU, Femi Falana, had told Channels Television that the body would call off the strike soon.

“I am reasonably confident that the consultations between the House and the Presidency will yield positive results in the interest of the striking lecturers and the students,” he noted.

The Federal Government had last Tuesday registered two factional academic unions – Congress of Nigerian Universities Academics (CONUA) and the National Association of Medical and Dental Academics (NAMDA), a move ASUU declared illegal.