President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday directed new measures to immediately bring the on-going strike by university teachers to a close, in an intervention that comes nearly two months since the lecturers shut down the classrooms.

Jonathan ordered two government committees involved in long-drawn negotiations with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to implement immediate measures that would end the strike, said Governor Gabriel Suswam, Governor of Benue State and head of the Universities Needs Implementation Committee, after a meeting attended by Vice-President Namadi Sambo, who is the Chairman of the Earned Allowance Committee.

“The president has instructed us as to what to do, and he has shown a lot of commitments to flagging off projects worth about N100 billion in all the universities in the country, about 61 of them,” he said on Tuesday.

“So, we are hoping that we will be able to see the end of the strike very soon. At the end of the day, we hope ASUU is satisfied with the measures that have so far been taken.”

He said the government is to meet with university councils and vice chancellors within the week on the new decision.

The decision came after a meeting, which held earlier on Tuesday between the federal government and ASUU representatives, ended without an agreement.

Long strike

President Jonathan has come under intense criticism for his handling of the industrial action by the ASUU, particularly as a former lecturer and member of the association.

The strike, which began June ending, has continued despite intervention and negotiations by the National Assembly and the ministries of education and labour.

The federal government said its resources could not meet the union’s demands for backlog of allowances, while ASUU insists its demands also cover mainly better funding and equipping of universities.

Suswam said the meeting was summoned by the president “to take some decisions that would end the strike.’’

“The president has graciously agreed that in the first week of September he will be able to flag-off the projects,” he said.

“You also know that the procurement process will have to be followed and these projects include hostels in our universities, classrooms and theatres, libraries and laboratories among others. Some are renovation some are new and all the 61 universities are going to benefit from one project or another.”

The union has, however, rejected the government’s offer of N30 billion to pay part of their allowances, insisting on N87 billion.

Asked whether government would be willing to shift ground on ASUU’s insistence, Suswam said negotiation was still on-going.

ASUU reaction

Speaking on phone with Nigerian Telegraph, a Prof. Festus Iyayi, a former president of ASUU, said that the union was unaware of any such order. According to Iyayi, as things stand, the strike would go on because in the most recent meeting, the government still insisted that the implementation of the last agreement was impossible.

“If they are ordering an end to the strike without honouring the agreement, let them go to the schools and teach,” he said.