Breaking: ASUU suspends eight months strike with conditions

The Academic Staff Union of Universities has suspended its eight-month-old strike with conditions, The Eagle Online has been told.

However, the President of the union, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, will formally convey the message to Nigerians.

According to informed sources, the National Executive Council of the ASUU took the decision to suspend the strike with conditions during its marathon meeting held from Thursday evening until the wee hours of Friday at the ASUU secretariat in Abuja.

The NEC, made up of chairmen of the state chapters and members of the national executive, was said to have agreed to state conditions that must be met for the strike, which commenced on February 14, 2022, to be fully called off.

Among these, as stated by the union after its last meeting with the leadership of the House of Representatives, led by the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, were the integration of the peculiarities of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution into the Federal Government’s Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System for their payment and payment of their outstanding salaries in batches as promised.

The Eagle Online recalls that the leadership of the House of Representatives had intervened in the crisis between the Federal Government and ASUU, taking the issue to President Muhammadu Buhari.

This came at a time the Court of Appeal also ordered ASUU to suspend the strike before its appeal following the ruling of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria could be heard.

The lawyer of ASUU, Femi Falana, and Osodeke had earlier in the week said it was going to be a matter of days for the strike to be called off following Gbajabiamila’s intervention.

The branches of the union had then met on the offer of the Federal Government through the House of Representatives, with most of them favouring the suspension of the strike.

The Chairman of the University of Calabar branch, Dr. John Edor, who spoke with newsmen Wednesday in Calabar, Cross River State after a congress of the union, said the truce was as a result of the intervention of Gbajabiamila.

Edor said: “Some understanding have been reached, some shifting of grounds have been made and we need to process this through our various organs and the final resolution will be taken at the National Executive Council.”