The chairman of the Needs Committee of the Federal Government negotiating team with the Academic Staff Union of Universities and Governor of Benue, Gabriel Suswam yesterday said with the progress so far made in negotiation, the strike embarked upon by the university teachers should be called off in no distant future.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked the Federal Government to honour its agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in order to end the ongoing strike that has paralyzed academic  activities in the nation’s public universities.

THERE is a paradox governments have built around education – they are spending billions of Naira on education, yet the financial issues around education are not being resolved. The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, strike is only one of many matters that are dogging education.

Next June, it would be exactly a quarter of a century since my graduating class left the University of Jos. We had been admitted into the University of Jos in the middle of the 1980s, just at the cusp of the end of the term of Professor Emmanuel U. Emovon as Vice-Chancellor.

As the face -off between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) lingers, the Executive Secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Julius Okojie, in this interview, exonerates government from blame over the decay in universities. Excerpts of interview:

There was a low turn-out at the town hall meeting called by ASUU on Thursday at the Mapo Hall in Ibadan.

MINISTER of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Rufa’i gave hope that the strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, over the non-implementation of the 2009 agreement the union entered into with the Federal Government would soon be settled once and for all.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities has described as a misrepresentation of facts, the comment made by the Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that the striking university lecturers demanded N92 billion as earned allowances in the 2009 agreement.

It cost about N20 to board a shuttle from one end of Lagos State University to another. On the average, a driver of a 14-seater bus could make about 20 trips per day. But since the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) began its nationwide strike on July 1, the situation has become less than average for non- academic citizens of university communities.

A closed-door meeting between the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Tuesday in Abuja ended in a deadlock.

Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State and other road users, were, yesterday, trapped in Lagos as hundreds of protesters took to the streets in a peaceful protest to lament the deplorable state of the nation’s public education sector.

There ap-pears to be no end in sight to the lingering strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, in the country as Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala declared, yesterday, that the nation’s economy cannot accommodate the demands of the lecturers for now.

The Kano University of Technology Alumni Association has declared that industrial action always embarked by the university lecturers was no longer fashionable in Nigeria.

IBADAN — The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, said Professor Julius Okojie led National Universities Commission, NUC, should be probed over alleged fraudulent practices on university accreditation in the country.

RIVERS State University of Science and Technology (RSUST) is unfazed by the current nationwide strike by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over differences with Federal Government.