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Worried about the negative effect of another long strike by the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU), the House of Representatives yesterday moved to end the union’s on-going one-week warning strike.
Adopting the resolutions, of a motion raised as a matter of urgent public importance by the Chairman of Education Committee, Hon. Farouk Lawan, the House urged the Federal Government to implement the various agreements it entered into with the university lecturers in 2009.
They lawmakers also prevailed on ASUU to call off the warning strike and resume negotiations on their grievances.
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In his debate, Lawan warned that if not tackled from the onset, the strike would have dire consequences on the country’s troubled education sector.
He condemned the nonchalant attitude of corporate institutions towards investing in academic research and development and called for improved funding of education by the government as the panacea to the perennial hiccups in the sector and its concomitant negative psychological effect on the university students.
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Also during yesterday plenary, the legislators urged the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to urgently formalise the establishment of the nine new federal universities in the country.
The development was sequel to the adoption of a motion sponsored by Hon. Faleke Abiodun on the need to provide legal backing for the nine newly -established universities and urged the executive to quickly present Bills to the National Assembly for their enabling instruments.
He said, “The establishment and operation of these universities without presenting their enabling Acts to the National Assembly is an infraction of Section 5 of the 1999 Constitution , and therefore the process of their establishment remain inchoate”.
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?“The financial implication of establishing and sustaining these universities had never been previewed by the National Assembly as required by Section 81 of the 1999 Constitution”.
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?Also, a Bill for an Act to amend the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Act to make it mandatory for the authorities of NYSC to provide life Insurance policy for Corps Members passed second reading and another Bill for an Act to provide for and regulate community service for offenders in certain criminal cases.
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Meanwhile, additional chairmen for the standing committees who were not announced initially and five new committees and their chairmen were announced by the Speaker, Hon. Aminu ?Tambuwal, yesterday.
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They are all to be officially inaugurated today at a ceremony at the National Assembly.
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They are the House Committee on Army, Muktar Garba; Committee on Judiciary, Aminu ?Shagari; Committee on Diaspora, Abike Dabiri-Erewa; Committee on Public Procurement, Jumoke Okoya-Thomas, and Legislative Compliance, Maruof Akinderu Fatai among others.