President Goodluck Jonathan will
in a fortnight, flag-off
infrastructure projects worth
N100 billion in universities and
tertiary institutions across the
country, a situation which may
assuage the striking Academic
Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)
to end their industrial action.
Benue State Governor, Gabriel
Suswam, who is also the
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 he
met with Jonathan.
According to Suswam, the
projects that the President is
expected to flag-off 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.
He observed: “that is one of the
reasons why ASUU is even on
strike,” assuring 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.
On purported de-camping of
some governors from the
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),
Suswam said: ‘I'm not one of
those governors so I can't
comment on their behalf. Politics
is something that is very free if
people decide to change their
parties, it is their own
prerogative to so do. As far as
I'm concerned I'm 100 per cent
PDP. I will never leave the party
and I believe I will stay with the
party until we get to where we
want to be.”
He also said the five northern
governors currently on
nationwide consultations with
key political stakeholders “were
free as leaders in their own
right” to undertake the exercise,
pointing out that: "they are
leaders in their own.
“I'm not part of the wider
consulting and what they are
consulting for. They have the
right to consult. I believe that
whatever we do as present
leaders, we must ensure that
whatever actions we take would
be for the interest of the people”.
www.thisdaylive.com/articles/jonathan-to-inaugurate-n100bn-projects-for-tertiary-institutions/155290/?utm_medium=twitter

We pray o

Source?

calebo10: Source?

check up