Life is set to return to public universities after 169 days of a teachers’ strike.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) called off its industrial action yesterday.
This followed a marathon meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the union at the Federal University of Technology (FUT) Minna, Niger State.
ASUU National President Dr. Nasir Isa Fagge said: “NEC resolved to suspend the strike embarked upon on the 1st July 2013, with effect from Tuesday December 17th, 2013 and directs its branches to resume work forthwith”.
He said the NEC considered the reports from National Secretariat and various branches and resolved to accept the resolutions signed between ASUU and the Federal Government on December 11. The President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) as witnessed the ceremony.
In suspending the strike, the union will facilitate the inauguration of the Implementation and Monitoring Committee on the Report of the NEEDS Assessment of Nigerian Universities and ensure faithful compliance to the report.
Fagge said NEC wanted areas in the ASUU-FGN agreement of 2009 that require policy and legislative steps to be promptly addressed for the challenges facing the system to be effectively tackled.
He added that the union hoped that all the provisions of the extant agreements for the revitalisation of the University system will immediately focus on the policy and legislative needs.
Fagge appreciated the understanding and support of students, saying teachers have resolved to go the extra mile to cover the five months lost.
Assuring parents and students, the ASUU President said: “We have undertaken
to go back to the classroom, laboratories etc, to do our best for our students, their parents and our country.
“We are going back to rekindle the motivation and aspiration in our members to strive to encourage our students to excel, all in expectation that government will sincerely honour its own part of the bargain.
“We are returning to classes with the firm hope that parents will take actual interests in their children’s conditions of learning and living. We expect parents to actively demand better funding, better living conditions, better laboratories, better freedom for their children, in order to get on all-round education that will enable them compete with the rest of the world.”
The ASUU President said: “It is our hope that government will honour these resolutions as signed. That nobody shall be victised in any way whatsoever for his/her role in the process leading to these resolution and agreement”.