By Ismail Auwal
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) President, Emmanuel Osodeke, has urged the Muhammadu Buhari administration to take a cue from former President Goodluck Jonathan on how to end the ongoing strike.
Osodeke disclosed that the immediate past administration engaged the union in a 14-hour negotiation to resolve the issue.
“Government should for once go the way of Goodluck Jonathan. And in one night, we had that meeting for 14 hours. Open. Both sides were open, no class, no power, no sitting power, and we looked at all the issues and we resolved it within 14 hours.”
“If this government can put out a strong team, if the president cannot be there, let him put a strong team together or people who are not part of those who are telling lies presently.”
“People who love this country. They don’t have to be in government. If you can put this thing together and we meet to look at how we can resolve this national problem,” he said.
The union has been on strike since February and all efforts to resolve the dispute have not yielded results.
The strike entered the 195th day on Sunday. Some of the lecturers’ demands include funding for the revitalisation of public universities, payment of earned academic allowances, and adoption of the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) as a preferred payment option instead of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) and payment of promotion arrears.
