Hope rose again for students of public universities as the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) yesterday said it had completed negotiation with the Federal Government on the issues that led to its 141-day-old strike.
“The strike can end tomorrow. We are done with the negotiations and now waiting for the government to call us for the signing of the renegotiated agreement,” ASUU President Emmanuel Osodeke, announced.
Osodeke was however quick to explain that all the issues that led to the strike remained unresolved since a pact has yet to be signed by the parties to the dispute.
The ASUU boss, who was featured on Channels’ Politics Today, listed the non-revitalisation of infrastructure in the universities and the disputed mode of payments to university teachers as some of the issues.
He attributed the lingering strike to what he called a lack of will by the government to do the needful.
Osedeke explained that ASUU embarked on the strike after exhausting all avenues available to amicably resolve the issues with the government.
His words: “If the government had been willing to resolve the issues affecting Nigerians, then there would be no need to go on strike. The problem is the will of the government to resolve issues,
“All the issues that made us go on strike are still there; that is the revitalisation fund that is putting more money into universities and revitalising the infrastructure in the universities. “There is also the issue of our mode of payments in the universities.
There is no university in the world where lecturers are paid salaries from the Accountant General’s Office.
“We have challenged them to provide one, if universities are a universal body, why are they doing things differently? “We talk of negotiation of the agreement, the proliferation of universities, among others, so there are lots of issues that they have not resolved.
“What we are doing is for the benefit of Nigerians. We want a a situation where there will not be a disparity between the children of the rich and the poor in knowledge acquisition in this country.”
Meanwhile, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to “urgently recover missing N105.7bn of public funds from ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to fund the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in order return to classrooms without further delay.”
SERAP said, “Pending the recovery of the missing public funds, we urge you to redirect some of the presidency’s budget of N3.6 billion on feeding and travels, and the N134 billion allocated to the National Assembly in the 2022 budget to meet the demands by ASUU.”
SERAP also urged him to “send to the National Assembly a fresh supplementary appropriation bill, which reflects the proposed redirected budget, for its approval.
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