The intervention of House of Representatives speaker Hon Femi Gbajabiamila in the brewing feud between the government and ASUU seems to be paying off, at least for now.
The honorable speaker had initiated a meeting between ASUU and the federal government being ably represented by the of Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, to find a way forward in the rift between the two parties in order to avoid a looming strike.
ASUU had earlier issued a 3 week warning of strike to the federal government if the agreements they both reached in their previous stand-off are not met.
Gbajabiamila warned that there are grave consequences of interrupting the education process and that it had other unimagined negative effects beyond the immediate which are even more dangerous.
He said “We cannot sit here as leaders and watch things fall apart; education is very important and no amount of money put into it is too much. This cannot be a perennial exercise, strike cannot be a tool we use all the time; it should be the last resort after all other efforts have failed. We need to resolve this issue once and for all,”.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zaynab Ahmed, assured ASUU that the government was not against the University Transparency and Accountability Solution payment platform developed by ASUU, which was proposed as replacement for the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System currently in operation.
She said that the government will attend to the major demands of the union in about a week time and stated that the 22.1 billion of earner allowances will be released while work is put into place to tackle other demands of the union.
ASUU president, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke on his part said he will revert back to the NEC of the union for deliberations on the government’s proposal, he said this in response to being questioned about calling off the strike ultimatum “I do not know what the decisions would be yet, but be rest assured that we will communicate our decision after the NEC meeting.”
