The lead counsel for the Academic Staff Union of Universities and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana has called on the speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila to apologise to the members of the union.

He recently had his say while speaking to the press, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to him, he believes the speaker should have apologised to the ASUU and the Nigerian people, instead of denying the agreement reached with ASUU and President Buhari on the decision of the Federal Government to pay for the period covered by the strike.

He added that the fact is that the agreement was based on the commitment of the lecturers to ensure that the 2021/2022 academic session was not cancelled.

His words, “It is public knowledge that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila intervened in the last strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities. Several meetings were held with the relevant stakeholders by the leadership of the House. While briefing the Nigerian people on the resolution of the crisis on October 10, 2022, the Speaker did categorically state as follows:

“We agreed with ASUU and the government on certain things which we took to Mr President. I have visited the president twice. The first time we made our recommendations with the government shifting some and ASUU shifting some. We spoke with Mr President. There was one sticking issue which was the issue of no work no pay. And the President did ask that he would suggest the recommendations and would have one more meeting which we did on Friday after the budget.”

“That meeting was even better than the first one we had with him, and Mr President had agreed to settle things. I am not going to talk about that now, and that he would disclose whatever it is tomorrow, Tuesday which is tomorrow.”

“Having been embarrassed by the circumstance, the Speaker should have apologised to the ASUU and the Nigerian people instead of denying the agreement reached with ASUU and President Buhari on the decision of the Federal Government to pay for the period covered by the strike. The Agreement was based on the commitment of the lecturers to ensure that the 2021/2022 academic session was not cancelled.”