Namadi Sambo
There was a new twist to the lingering strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Thursday as the federal government handed over the process of negotiations with the union to Vice President Namadi Sambo.
Before now, the committee chaired by Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswam’s had all the while been responsible for the negotiations since the strike started three months ago.
But effort by the committee to strike a deal between federal and the union and end the strike may had refused to produce result.
To this effect, Vice President Sambo on Thursday evening met a delegation of ASUU led by its president, Nasir Isa Fagge behind closed doors for about 2 hours in a bid to bring the two parties to a meeting point.
After the meeting held at Sambo’s office, ASUU president told State House correspondents that they took a message from the government and would meet their members and get back to government.
On whether Nigerians she expect expedite action at resolving the crisis, Fagge said that as a good messenger, he would only report back to the larger ASUU body.
For his part, Supervising minister of education, Nyesom Wike assured Nigerians that students would soon return to school as government was ready to make sure all the contending issues are resolved as soon as possible.
Also present at the meeting were Dr. Dipo Fasina and Dr. Abdullahi Sule-Kano; the Vice Chancellors of Bayero University Kano (BUK), University of Ibadan (UI) and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) Bauchi, Profs.
Others are Abdulrasheed Abubakar, Isaac Adewole; Muhammed Hamisu Muhammed and Head of National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof Julius Okojie was also at the meeting.
Source: http://leadership.ng/news/200913/sambo-takes-over-fg-s-negotiation-asuu