The former president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, narrated how his government resolved a lingering strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in one night.
Jonathan spoke on Wednesday in Abuja at the 70th birthday celebration of Matthew Hassan Kukah.
It could be reported that ASUU embarked on strike on February 14, over a number of issues, including the non-payment of revitalization funds and earned academic allowances as well as the non-adoption of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) over the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
All efforts by the Federal Government and stakeholders to return the lecturers back to class have yielded no results.
Speaking at the event, Jonathan said “The society we are managing is quite complex. Yes, I was the president and I tried my best. Now, we are talking about the ASUU strike. During my time too, ASUU had four months of the strike.
Different committees were meeting but nothing was working. I said ‘How can our children stay out of school for four good months?”
“So, I had to call a meeting of all the leadership of ASUU. I presided over the meeting with my vice president. The Attorney General was there. I said that night we must solve the problem. The Attorney General was there; the Secretary to the Government of the Federation was there; the ministers of education were there; the labor ministers were there; the finance ministers and everybody that had to do with it [strike].
“And I thought that my being there would help us to do things quickly. But we spent the whole night. We finished like 5:30 am and the strike was called off. So, there were issues,” Jonathan said.
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