President of the Academic Staff of Universities (ASUU), Dr Nassir Faggae, yesterday dashed the hopes of students and parents as he vowed that the union will continue its over one month strike, until the government meets all it’s demands.
Faggae, who spoked to journalist after leaving the sub committee meeting headed by Bauchi state Governor Gabriel, stated that the union would completely deal with all the challenges confronting all the universities.
When asked if ASUU could not call of the strike for the interest of students, he said no. He queried “Didn’t we do that in the past? How many times did we call of strike, people just go back and sleep. Is that what you want us to do?
Continue strike in this country? Don’t you think for once, it is better we come out and things are done right before we call off strike? I think that is better for the country”.
But Governor Suswam , chairman of the Federal Government NEEDS Assessment Committee for universities , assured us that the face-off will be resolved in two weeks time.
“ The meeting went on well, we have made sub sequential progress in the negotiation. I would like to say that we are almost there. The sub committee that I set up could not completely finish the work and because there is holiday in between, we have shifted the meeting until next week Tuesday.
“Based on the commitment and seriousness of the negotiation, we are hoping that we will complete this in the next two weeks.
“Because of the holiday in between, we would have been able to finish negotiation. Hopefully, we would agree on all the issues and if the issues agreed upon by the two parties, I’m very optimistic that the issue would be addressed next week. I believe once we address the issue, the strike will be called off”, he said.
