By Onome Oghenetega
Former President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday narrated how he resolved a four-month-old strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in one day under his regime.
Jonathan, who was Nigeria’s President from 2010 to 2015, said he was greatly disturbed by ASUU’s protracted strike until he had to personally summon a meeting with the striking lecturers.
The former President spoke during a public lecture organised by The Kukah Centre to honour its founder and the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah, who celebrated 70 years on Wednesday in Abuja.
Recall that ASUU has been on strike for over six months following failure of President Muhammadu Buhari-led government to reach agreement on issues affecting the running of Nigerian universities including revitalisation funding.
But speaking at the Kukah’s birthday, Jonathan noted that he had to sit with ASUU leadership throughout the day to ensure that the issues were resolved and strike called-off.
He said he had to summon the meeting to quickly resolve the issues since discussions between ASUU and his ministers failed to reach a truce.
According to him, “The society we are managing is complex, now we are talking about the ASUU strike. During my time too, ASUU had four months of strike. Different committees were meeting and meeting and nothing was working. I said how can our children stay out of school for four months? So I had to call a meeting of all the leadership of ASUU.
“I presided over the meeting with my Vice President and the Attorney General then 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, Labour and Finance were there and with everyone that had to do with it.
“And I thought that my being there would help us to do things quickly. But we spent the whole night, before we finished at about 5:30am. When we concluded the strike was called off. So, there were issues.”
Jonathan commended the celebrant (Bishop Kukah) for speaking truth to power despite being friend to those in power.
