“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.
"In few days, we will put this Strike to an end"
ASUU President commends intervention of the Leadership of @HouseNGR led by Speaker @femigbaja pic.twitter.com/ugdDwljMOi
— House of Reps NGR (@HouseNGR) October 10, 2022
Since February 14, 2022, lecturers at public universities have been on strike
in protest of their subpar welfare and unpaid Earned Academic Allowance.
Gbajabiamila had previously stated on Friday that President Muhammadu Buhari
would shortly address the ongoing ASUU strike.
The President and Gbajabiamila met at the State House for the second time in a
week to discuss the ASUU strike. Gbajabiamila said the meetings were
productive and that Buhari will announce his choices to the public after
considering the legislators' suggestions.
In a meeting with Gbajabiamila and other members of the green chamber on
Monday, Osodeke asked the lawmakers to cooperate with university professors to
put a stop to the crisis.
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 as illegal.