ASUU President Identifies One Lesson Buhari Should Learn From Jonathan’s Govt. To End The Strike

The ongoing crisis between the Academic Staff Union of Universities and the Federal government may likely be over if some lessons were taken from how the crisis was managed during the last administration of Goodluck Jonathan. 

This was the position of the Union president, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke while granting an interview on a National Television on Sunday.

It is over 195 days the academic union has shut down the public Universities across the country and every effort to bring the situation to an end has continued to prove abortive.

ASUU has recently given some conditions to the federal government that must be met before they can return to the classroom. One of the major conditions given was that the government must pay all the backlog of salaries lecturers are being owed when they were on strike. 

However, the federal government has insisted it would not pay the salaries. According to the minister of education, the lecturers can only be paid for the job they have done. It is a principle of no work, no pay. This appears to have dominated another phase of the crisis between the two parties.

Speaking on AIT Focus on Sunday, the union president, professor Emmanuel Osodeke stated what happened during Jonathan’s administration that enabled the lingering crisis to be resolved that time. He asked president Buhari to emulate the idea.

According to Osodeke, when the union was on strike, Jonathan government engaged them in a meeting for over 14-hour negotiation so as to resolve the issue.

H advise the present government to set up a Committee comprising of people of integrity who can negotiate dispassionately. They must be people who really love the country and care for the innocent students whose time are being wasted for no reason.

“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.