House of Reps to lay agreement with ASUU before Buhari

SPEAKER of the House of Representatives, Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila, on Tuesday, raised hopes that the ongoing face-off between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government will soon be amicably resolved. 

Speaking with newsmen in Abuja after a four-hour closed-door meeting called at the instance of the House leadership with the president of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osokede and the Minister of State for Education, Goodluck Oppiah, in attendance, Gbajabiamila said “We have covered a good ground. We have made very good progress.” He pointed out that the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), the Accountant-General, Auditor General and the National Salaries Incomes and Wages Commission would be invited on Thursday over the matter. 

According to him, “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 solution can be offered like they said two heads are better than one. 

“Now that the legislature has come in, we are very hopeful based on our deliberations in the last four or five 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. 

“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. 

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“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”s and cross the ‘t’s. 

“Once that is done, the leadership of this House will await the return of Mr President from the ongoing United Nations General Assembly and we will meet and lay before him the agreement made by this arm of government. 

“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 now 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. 

“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.” 

Speaking with newsmen, ASUU president, Osodeke, said, “I also want to thank the Speaker and members of the House for this intervention. I think it’s a good development and we are waiting what they will send to us that can make our members wait. I believe that in the near future, this issue will be resolved.”