There were strong indications yesterday that in public universities would soon be reopened for academic activities.
House of Representatives Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, activist-lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) and President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, raised the hope that striking lecturers would suspend their action in a matter of days.
Gbajabiamila, who spoke after a brief meeting with ASUU representatives, led by Prof Osokede, at the National Assembly, expressed confidence that raised the hope that was echoed by Falana in Lagos at the launch of “Breaking coconut with your head”, a book written by Mr. Lanre Arogundade.
Osodeke said: “Yes, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. What that means is that there is hope, but we are still negotiating.”
The ASUU president, however did not give a concrete date for the restart of academic activities.
“We will let you (press) know when we finish our negotiations,” he said.
ASUU declared a nationwide strike on February 14 after negotiations over welfare-related matters with the Federal Government broke down.
But in a ruling last Friday, a three-member panel of an Abuja Appeal Court, led by Justice Hamma Barka, ordered the striking lecturers to “immediately” call off the eight-month old strike.
After the breakdown of negotiation, Labour and Employment Minister Senator Chris Ngige referred the conflict to the National Industrial Court for arbitration.
The court asked the lecturers to return to work, a position that was upheld by the appellate court.
After yesterday’s meeting with Gbajabiamila, Osodeke said there is “light at the end of the tunnel.”
He lauded the House for its intervention in the matter saying, if it had done so since the beginning, the strike would only have lasted days.
Osodeke said he had taken note of the areas covered, but a decision would be taken after consulting with members of the union.
He said: “We have met briefly in the Speaker’s office and looked at all the issues. He has briefed us. We have taken note of what they have covered. As you know, in my union, we operate bottom-up.
“We don’t take decisions on their behalf without having their consent. We have agreed that between now and tomorrow, we are going to get some documents signed that we can take to our members. We will do that as quickly as possible in the interest of all of us, Nigerians and the students, so that this thing can be resolved as quickly as possible.
“From what we have seen today, for the first time since this our action started, we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel, because this is the first time we are having such a thing.
“We hope this time around there will not be any attempt by anybody or group to create something that will also make us run into anything again. We do hope that this will be the final in the interest of our children.
“Our struggle – thank God the National Assembly is joining us – is for the educational system in Nigeria. We want to have a university in Nigeria where we should be earning money from students all over the world and paying in hard currency as we are paying (overseas) so that our system will grow.
“That is why we are in this struggle. We want to have a university where the remuneration is enough to attract lecturers from all over the world, just as our people are going outside.
“As we speak today, we are having problems but we have not noticed it. We are creating so many universities but there are no qualified people to teach in those universities because the good ones are leaving.
“We must create the environment. We are the Giant of Africa and we must act as the Giant of Africa. We should have people coming in – in droves – not people leaving. That is why we are here.
“I want to sincerely thank you for this your resilience, your intervention. Please, let all of us work together and let us put a beautiful end to this thing we have started, so that every Nigerian will be proud that we have universities we can be proud of. We thank you. We also extend our appreciation to the President for intervening. We do hope that this is the last one.
“I want to appeal that in future, we should not allow strikes to linger. A strike should not go beyond two days. If the way the National Assembly has intervened if we had done that long ago, from the beginning, to be allowed to do that all along, 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 in this strike.”
Gbajabiamila said President Muhammadu Buhari will today make a pronouncement on the “No work, no pay” policy.
He said besides this, the other issues had been taken care of, with the Federal Government and ASUU shifting grounds on their positions.
The meeting which lasted about 15 minutes was preceded by a closed-door session between the Speaker and Prof Osodeke and other top officials of ASUU. The meeting lasted for about 45 minutes.
Gbajabiamila said: “This is a recap to seal the deal on what has been a long fought, long hard road for everybody both for ASUU, the students and the government. As you would recall, some weeks ago the House got involved in this crisis and we had long, tough, intense meetings with ASUU.
‘We had meetings with those on the government side and we are happy to report that as the result of the consultation and intervention of the House, very significant progress has been made and we are more or less at the of the road. Save for dotting some “I”s and crossing some ‘Ts’.
“We agreed with ASUU and the government on certain things which we took to Mr. President. I have visited the president twice. First time we made our recommendations with the government shifting some and ASUU shifting some.
“We spoke with Mr. President. There was one sticking issue which was the issue of no work no pay. And the President did ask that he would suggest the recommendations and would have one more meeting which we did on Friday after the budget.
“That meeting was even better than the first one we had with him, and Mr. President had agreed to settle things. I am not going to talk about that now, and that he would disclose whatever it is tomorrow (today) which is tomorrow on the 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 revitalisation, salary, that there has been significant improvement, revitalisation has been provided for in the budget. We made sure of that.
“The salary structure has been looked at and there has been improvement as well, and we made sure of that. As you heard Mr President say during his budget presentation. He appealed to ASUU to go back to class and that N470 billion total has been included in the budget.
“The issue of UTAS, which was another important issue both ASUU and the Office of the Accountant-General and government have agreed that they will work together and the peculiarities of UTAS that is required for the payment platform IPPIS. They would sit down together and the chairman Committee on Tertiary Education would also be part of that tripartite sit down arrangement to include all those things that are required by ASUU in the IPPIS platform.
“I believe we have covered ground, covered most of the thorny issues and it is basically, what we have agreed with ASUU is basically to put everything on paper and sign off and I believe if we had met yesterday and the papers had been drawn up, ASUU, I am sure would have called of the strike today.
“But we only just met behind closed doors now and so we have to draw up the agreement as I have stated to you, and hopefully in the next couple of days, of course ASUU has to get back to its bases as well, once that is agreed, I am very hopeful and very excited about the possibility or probability the strike would be called of in a manner of days.
“I want to thank the union for having come this far and having reported at every moment that we have called them. Even today’s meeting was called just today and at such short notice, you were here and we have met in my office and I believe we have concluded positively. We did this for the sake of our students and children and I hope it would be a thing of the past. I thank you very much, ASUU. I also thank Nigerians for their patience, and the students, having endured these many months. But I believe that this has hopefully come to an end in a matter of days.”
Falana, who is lead counsel to ASUU in its legal tussle with the Federal Government, said it is likely that the strike will be concluded outside the courtroom.
