..as he denies offsetting their salaries & arrears
By Temitope Adedeji
The lead counsel for the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, has called on the speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila to apologize to the members of the Union.
The human rights lawyer also faulted the speaker for denying the agreement reached with ASUU.
Falana in a chat with newsmen explained that a member of the Federal Executive Council truncated Gbajabiamila’s efforts regarding the resolution of matters related to the strike between the government and ASUU.
This is coming after ASUU president, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke had accused the speaker of deceiving the union. However, several lawmakers on Wednesday denied the claim.
However, Falana said “It is public knowledge that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila intervened in the last strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities. Several meetings were held with the relevant stakeholders by the leadership of the House. While briefing the Nigerian people on the resolution of the crisis on October 10, 2022, the Speaker did categorically state as follows:
“We agreed with ASUU and the government on certain things which we took to Mr President. I have visited the president twice. The first time we made our recommendations with the government shifting some and ASUU shifting some. We spoke with Mr President. There was one sticking issue which was the issue of no work no pay. And the President did ask that he would suggest the recommendations and would have one more meeting which we did on Friday after the budget.
“That meeting was even better than the first one we had with him, and Mr President had agreed to settle things. I am not going to talk about that now, and that he would disclose whatever it is tomorrow, Tuesday which is tomorrow.”
