Silence on why the leadership of the Bauchi State House of Assembly have decided to wade into the ongoing industrial action embarked on by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Bauchi State University Gadau Branch, has been broken.
The leadership through the speaker of the House, Abubakar Y Suleiman, was observed to have early this week engaged the leadership of ASUU in the state in a crucial meeting.
Briefing media practitioners shortly after the meeting that lasted several hours, yesterday in Bauchi, the speaker said the State House of Assembly members are perturbed by the way and manner the strike has remained unresolved at the national level.
The speaker, who also revealed the ongoing plans by the Bauchi branch of ASUU to embark on a fresh strike as soon as the national body called off its ongoing strike, said the situation has continued to give the Assembly members sleepless nights hence their intervention.
According to him, “as representative of the people, we are worried about how university students in the State are kept at home for eight months due to the strike which brought a lot of setbacks to the students and their parents, hence the reason for convening the meeting.”
The House, according to him, has during one of its plenary made resolutions on the need for the state government to wade in on the lingering strike in the state university.
The House was said to have admonished the state government to sit with ASUU and the University Management to find lasting solutions to the problems affecting the university so that the school will reopen and students return to their studies.
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While waiting to see the implementation of the resolution, the members, as made known by him, were, however, disturbed at a recent press statement issued by the state branch of the union threatening to embark on another strike as soon as the national body of the union suspends the ongoing strike.
He said, “we read in a press release issued by the Union that even when the nationwide strike is called off, it is planning to embark on internal strike.”
Stressing that “this is disturbing” the members as stated by him “find it necessary to convene this very important meeting with the leadership of the Union, the Vice Chancellor and the representatives of the Ministry of Education, with a view to finding lasting solutions to the problems bedevilling the University.”
He explained that the meeting was fruitful as they ironed out the major problems affecting the University such as lack of adequate funding, delay in payment of salaries, earned academic allowances among others and proffered a way out.
On their part, the state Chairman of the Union, Dr Yusuf Musa Yahaya, commended the speaker for his swift intervention by persuading Bauchi ASUU from embarking on another strike.
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