- * As President Buhari Allegedly Promises To Address ASUU's Core Grievances
By Celestine Okafor (Editor-in-Chief) @CelestineOkaf11
After exactly eight months of prolonged industrial action which had paralyzed academic activities in most federal and state-owned Universities in Nigeria, the tertiary institution lecturers under the auspices of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Friday, suspended it's strike.
The suspension of the strike has brought so much relief to both the students, their parents and guardians, and to the Federal Government and the lecturers themselves. It has also brought down some kind of tension in the country's education sector, and has relieved general anxiety and air of hopelessness which has characterised the strike action for eight consecutive months.
ASUU precisely embarked on it's strike on February 14 this year to protest what it described as the failure of the federal government to honor it's 2009 agreement with the body, which, among other issues, include University autonomy and funding of the public Universities for it's revitalization, and a review of salaries and allowances of the lecturers.
ASUU, through it's Vice President, Comrade Chris Piwuna, was quoted by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as confirming that the strike has been suspended after ASUU's marathon meeting on Thursday which lasted into the early hours of this Friday morning, October 14, 2022.
Earlier, the Industrial Court of Nigeria had ruled in a suit brought against ASUU by the federal government through the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, that the union should go back to the classroom first, as a condition for further hearing on their grievances.
This labour court judgement was eventually upheld by the Appeal Court early in the week amidst an on-going legislative and sundry official interventions by the Nigeria's House of Representatives. The House Speaker, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and the ASUU's defence Counsel, Femi Falana, had assured the expectant nation severally, that the strike would soon be resolved.
There were also several other negotiation meetings initiated by various stakeholders apart frm the ones held at different times between ASUU and the Federal Government and led by both the Ministers of Labour and Employment and his counterpart in Education to resolve the strike impasse but which flopped.
But on Monday, October 10, this week, there was a glimmer of hope of a possible end to the work to rule action, when the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila and the ASUU president, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, jointly briefed the press about the progress in their negotiation talks.
The House of Reps Speaker revealed that the ASUU leadership was ready to sign an agreement to end the dispute based on the recommendations by the House which was presented to President Muhammadu Buhari by the leadership of the House of Representatives.
The Speaker, Gbajabiamila, also disclosed that having received the recommendations of the House on the matter, a pronouncement would be made on Tuesday by President Buhari towards the final resolution of the issues that necessitated the lecturer's strike.
Hon. Gbajabiamila was however delighted that the Presidency's disposition to the House of Rep's intervention was positive and assured the ASUU leadership at the last meeting with the leadership of Reps and other stakeholders that they (ASUU) would be invited for a feedback from the meeting with President Buhari.
"I have visited the President twice", said Gbajabiamila, adding that, "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 Revitalization Fund, in terms of salary, there has been significant improvement. Revitalization 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 of the federation and the government have agreed that they would work togethert o 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 it's 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”.
However, ASUU President, Prof. Emma Osodeke who led members of his ASUU team to the meeting, also spoke on the issue and corroborated the views expressed by the Speaker over the signing of the agreement to end the strike.
He 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”, Prof. Osodeke expressed optimism. NNL.
