Strike: HoR, ASUU agree, to meet Buhari, others

By Tom Okpe

The House of Representatives and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) have reached a truce on how to end the ongoing strike by the lecturers, Femi Gbajabiamila, Speaker of the House of Representatives said.

Gbajabiamila spoke while briefing journalists at the end of a closed door meeting with the union and the Federal Government at the National Assembly in Abuja on Tuesday.

The Speaker said Parliament would wait for the return of President Muhammadu Buhari from the United Nations General Assembly, to convey their resolutions with ASUU to him with the hope that he would accept them to resolve the impasse.

He also said there will more meetings with the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the Accountant General and Auditor General of the federation on the way-forward.

Gbajabiamila said: “We have been here for hours now, deliberating on issues regarding the ongoing ASUU strike. We have covered a good ground. Let me just put it that way and we have made very good progress. Like I said earlier, ours is to interface directly with ASUU as an independent arm of government to find out exactly the details and how solutions can be offered like they said two heads are better than.

“Now that the legislative has come in, we are very hopeful based on our deliberations in the last 5 hours that there is light at the end of the tunnel. So, I thank them once again for making this time out in interest of our students.

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“There are principally seven areas where ASUU has presented what we consider to be the requisitions for them to go back to class. We have looked at those areas and we have more or less agreed on certain things in pursuant it finalize what the meeting of our minds, we have asked that NITDA, Accountant-general and auditor general and the Wages and Salaries Commission would be invited.

“Unfortunately, it’s too late to invite them tomorrow because the letters can only go out tomorrow. They will be invited to meet with the leadership on Thursday so that we can dot the ‘i” and cross the ‘t”. Once that is done, the leadership of this House will await the return of Mr. President from the ongoing general assembly and we will meet Mr. President and lay before him the agreement made by this arm of government.

“And we are hopeful and believe that Mr. President will buy into the agreement and with that, I believe this matter will be speedily brought to a close. In the meantime, between and when Mr. President comes, ASUU itself will go back to its members with the resolutions we have come to today to get their buy-in. And I don’t believe there is an issue or a problem from what we discussed. I hope and pray there will not be a problem. Once that is done, I believe we will be good to go. And we will bring this sorry situation to an end.

“I did want to go into the details. They are not necessary at this time. What is most important is that at the end of the day, hopefully, we conclude on what we agreed on today.”

Also speaking, Emmanuel Osodeke, the ASUU President thanked the speaker and members of the House for their intervention into industrial crisis.

Osodeke said: “I think it’s a good development and we are waiting for what they will send to us that can make our members wait. I believe that in the near future, this issue will be resolved.”