By Deji Elumoye:
President Muhammadu Buhari has pledged to engage critical stakeholders in the education sector towards ensuring that the seven-month old industrial action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union Of Universities (ASUU) is called off.
The President, who spoke Friday at the State House, Abuja, while meeting with the Chairman and select members of Pro-Chancellors of Federal Universities, promised to hold further consultations with relevant stakeholders, with a view to ending the protracted strike by the university lecturers.
President Buhari said without necessarily going back on what is already established policy, “I will make further consultations, and I’ll get back to you.”
Earlier in his speech, Professor Nimi Briggs, who left the Pro-Chancellors to the meeting said they had come to meet with the President in three capacities: “As President and Commander-in-Chief, as father of the nation, and as Visitor to the Federal universities.”
He added that despite the pall cast by more than seven months of industrial action, “the future of university system in the country is good,” citing as example the recent listing of the University of Ibadan among the first 1,000 universities in the world, a development occurring for the first time.
Briggs commended the Federal Government for concessions already made to the striking lecturers, including the offer to raise salaries by 23.5% across board, and 35% for Professors.
He, however, asked for “further inching up of the salary, in view of the economic situation of the country.”
The Pro-Chancellors also asked for a reconsideration of the No-Work, No-Pay stance of government, promising that lecturers would make up for lost time as soon as an amicable situation was reached, and schools reopened.
Also speaking, Minister of State for Education, Goodluck Nana Opiah, said all the concessions made by Federal Government were to ensure that the industrial action comes to an end, but ASUU has remained adamant.
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