In a bid to seek an end to the lingering strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, President Goodluck Jonathan will in two weeks flag-off infrastructure projects worth N100 billion in universities and tertiary institutions across the country.
Gabriel Suswam, Benue State Governor and chairman of the needs assessment implementation committee of the universities established by the National Economic Council (NEC) to bridge the infrastructural gaps in tertiary institutions, disclosed this to State House correspondents Friday after his meeting with Jonathan.
Suswam said the projects expected to be flagged-off by the president include lecture theatres, classrooms and hostels, many of which he noted were in deplorable conditions, necessitating the President to assign the committee to ensure that things were put in good shape immediately, observing; “that is one of the reasons why ASUU is even on strike.”W
He therefore assured that the committee would have completed its task, thus necessitating ASUU to call off its strike, which they embarked upon partly because of dearth of infrastructure and lack of earned allowances.
The governor explained that “the NEEDS assessment,” which his committee is handling has been virtually concluded, adding, “I think by next week, it will be definitely concluded,’ while the earned allowance aspect being handled by the Office of the Secretary of the Government of the Federation (OSGF) would be taken care of in the next one week.
“Given the seriousness of the issue, we will be able to come to some level of agreement with ASUU, which will probably lead to call off of the strike. I’m not saying they are calling off the strike. We have to agree on these two remaining issues,” Suswam stated.
The governor, who acquiesced that the deficits in terms of infrastructure, covering instructional materials to the universities would take years to address completely, however expressed optimism that if government sustains funding of the projects “I believe we will be able to give our universities a new lease of life.
“It will start with the sum of N1 billion and we set up a small committee which will report back to the bigger committee on Tuesday for us to be able to select universities across the six geopolitical zones where the president will decide to go and flag of projects worth about N1 billion and that should be the end of this month or first week of September, because there are processes that needed to be carried out for us to achieve that,” he said.
Pls FG have mercy on student oo d skul calender is rulling nd wen we resume d lecturer we started rushing all d topic 2 meet d lecturing week nd dat can cause failure 4 student pls ASUU PITY STUDENT OO.
FG pl u people shld help ours
FG pls help us, this strik has cause many things here in lagos, whch i cant said it aut pls asuu understand us pls.
pls FG be fast abt dat, bc u v done more harm dan good to studnts of dis nation…
ASUU d FG hs promis 2 work wt N100 billion naira all over d universities in d country and sm secondary schs,acordun 2 plans, d office of d secretary to d president is strategisin chats on hw d money wl b utiliz on dis promised project.pls ASUU cn u cal off d strike as soon as possible 4 studnts to go back 2 class, so as 2 b able 2 meet up wt d sku calenda.
FG pls act fast to give education secondary priority to Nigerians just place health as first and next education pls mr president do it for us and we shall give u our mandate comes 2015 election
We all know dat there is money in dis country,but because of reservation for personal interest it wont go into d most proper projcet.FG pls answer asuu so dat we can get back to class be4 off-service year will catch up with some of us.
We all know dat there is money in dis country,but because of reservation for personal interest it wont go into d most proper projcet.FG pls answer asuu let student get bizy and escape off year 4 service,student are FG property n dis is d more reason FG shld hv concern 4 us by fastening the call off proccesses