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.
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