By Ismail Auwal
The Academic Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government have reached an agreement following the intervention of House of Representatives Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila.
On Thursday, a reconciliation meeting held at the National Assembly resulted in a truce.
The speaker invited the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, and the ASUU leadership to a meeting to discuss averting the planned strike.
The timeline of various agreements reached between ASUU and the Federal Government since 2009 was presented at the meeting.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, stated in his address that the House will not sit back and watch as things deteriorate as a result of disagreements between ASUU and the federal government.
Gbajabiamila stated that Nigerians cannot afford another strike and that it cannot be used as a tool by ASUU to push for their demands on a regular basis.
He went on to say that all parties must accept responsibility for the ongoing squabble.
He did, however, say that ASUU has been very patient and that the government must be committed to fulfilling its end of the bargain.
Speaking, ASUU president, Prof. Victor Emmanuel, said there are so many issues and agreements which the government has reneged on.
He said the government had at various times failed to address the major issues like allowances, infrastructure, UTASS and others which he said always forced their members to embark on strike.
He said they reached an agreement with the government on the N1.3 trillion handed by the union to offset both the infrastructure and other funds.
According to him, it was agreed that, the monies will be paid in trances with N200 billion as the first trance which was not paid.
He said the amount was later scaled down to N52.127 billion with N30 billion as infrastructure fund and N22.127 billion Earned Academic Allowance (EAA) which neither was paid by the federal government.
On his part, the minister of state for education, Henry Nwajuba, said all the claims by ASUU were true and the government is in the process of meeting with the demands, especially the EAA and the infrastructure fund.
Corroborating, the minister of finance, budget and national planning, Zainab Ahmed, said there were provisions for the payments and some parts of the funds are already available and the payments will be affected in a week.
After the two ministers submissions, the ASUU leadership agreed to the terms saying that they will monitor the development pending the expiration of their strike notice.
