The Federal Government and the leadership
of Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, led by its President Dr. Nasir
Fagge yesterday, signed Memoradum of Understanding on the restructured 2009.
Agreement.
ASUU President, Dr. Nasir. Fagge
said the document signed would be presented to the union to take an affirmative
stand on the suspension of the 5 months old industrial action.
He said with the signing of the
MOU the 5month old strike would be suspended in a week’s time.
According to Fagge, “This is the
response to the letter we wrote to Mr. President and this document would now be
forwarded to our members and our members would give us direction. We are hoping
that we would be able to meet with our members in less than a week.
I don’t have the power to call
off the industrial action, it is only our members that can do that. And our
members gave us a message to give to the Federal Government which we have done
and within one week our members would meet. We already have the document which
shows that Government is committed”.
The ASUU President said the
development and revitalization of Nigeria’s education sector is the work of
everybody.
“It is never too late for the
nation to turn a new leaf and do what is right. Other countries that are
smaller and less powerful than Nigeria have done it and have succeeded. It is
rather unfortunate that Nigeria is not close to some of these smaller nations
around us. It is now, we must properly fund our universities, we have lost lot
of capital to nations like Ghana and Togo”, Fagge said.
He therefore assured Nigerians
that ASUU would not take long in ensuring that the right thing is done as soon
as possible.
The Supervising Minister of
Education, Barr. Nyesom Wike, who led the Federal Government team said the fact
that ASUU signed the resolution shows the strike has already been called off.
Wike said, “Today is historic.
We have a duty to restore normalcy into our schools. What this meeting shows is
that all the contending issues have been resolved and ASUU President said they
have a tradition and so he has to go back to report to their members even
though all the issues have been resolved. It is clear; we believe that very
soon our student would go back to the classroom”.
Among those at the meeting were
the Supervising Minister of Education, Barr. Nyesom Wike, President
Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Abdulweed Umar, ASUU National President, Dr.
Nasir Fagge, Executive Secretary of NUC, Prof Julius Okojie, and Permanent
Secretary Ministry of Education, Dr MacJohn Nwaobiala,
Vanguard
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