By Vera E. Abah
THE Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has stated that the end to the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is near as he led a delegation of principal officers from the second chamber to meet with President Muhammadu Buhari where they present to him the recommendations from the meeting he had with stakeholders in the past few days.
The Speaker held meetings with the leadership of ASUU and top officials of the federal government, including the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, who walked out of the gathering over comments by the ASUU President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, that Nigerians should not vote for those who kept their children at home for months.
Immediately after the plenary on Tuesday, the Speaker led a delegation of principal officers from the House to the Presidential Villa.
Addressing newsmen after his meeting with Buhari, the Speaker said: “After a series of engagements with ASUU and with people on the executive side, we’ve been able to come to some kind of decisions and recommendations to be made to Mr President for his approval.”
“As you know, what is on the front burner today, even beyond the politics, is that our universities, our lecturers, and our children are out of school.
“The House of Representatives decided to step in at that point four weeks ago, and we’ve had a series of meetings that lasted hours and we’ve been able to get both sides to shift ground to an extent, and that’s what we came to discuss with Mr President about those recommendations,” he added.
The Speaker also said he was hopeful that the crisis might soon be resolved as the delegation had a robust engagement with the President.
“Mr President, as usual, had a very good listening ear, he took the report of the House, accepted it. We discussed the details of the report at length, and he wanted to go through them himself.
“We have another meeting on Thursday between our good selves and Mr President for his final decision. We had a good engagement, with a very positive response.
“He asked us a couple of questions, in some grey areas which we clarified, and he accepted the reports, and he wanted a couple of days to go through it.
“We are working. We are hopeful that this (strike) will soon be a thing of the past. I know once this is agreed upon, the strike will be called off,” he said.
