ASUU Urge Parents to Implore FG on Strike

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has urged the parents of Nigerian students to implore the federal government to keep the pledges it made to the Union in order to terminate the ongoing, six-month strike.

According to ASUU, since the federal government employs the professors at the institutions, it has no dealings with the parents. Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, the national president of ASUU, revealed this in an interview with Vanguard at the weekend.

Osodeke made this comment in response to Festus Keyamo, the minister of labor and productivity, who urged that parents should implore ASUU to end the strike.

Since February 14 the administration has not complied with the requests, and on August 14 the strike by lecturers at public universities entered its sixth month.

To address the situation, numerous gatherings and committees were established, but to no avail.

President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, a two-week deadline to end the situation, but the deadline has passed with no resolution.

The President established a committee on Friday to examine the Treasury Single Account (TSA), the Government Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMIS), and the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS) for irregularities. This committee will be led by Minister of Communications and the Digital Economy, Professor Isa Pantami.

The Union, however, has stated that the adoption of a transparent payment platform University Transparency and Accountability Solutions (UTAS) is critical to resolving the current strike action.

Osodeke responded, “You should ask the government that. If the parents have made formal requests to the Union and if anything has been done recently. As a Union, we have carried out our duty. The government should be questioned about that. Since we’ve already tried it and they haven’t reacted, we won’t pressure them. We don’t interact with the parents of kids from Nigeria. Our employers are not our parents. As a result, we have no connection to them. Instead, they ought to implore the government.

“We are asking the federal government to fund its education appropriately. We’re simply asking the federal government to fund the education appropriately in line with the agreement, to fund the universities adequately in proportion to the budget of what other countries in the world are doing.”

According to the ASUU president, the government should have invested N2.3 trillion in tertiary .education since 2013, but to yet, it has only allocated N50 billion.

“And two, to respect the agreement it made with ASUU that it will put N2.3 trillion over six years into Nigerian universities as far back as 2013. So by now we’ve moved on and up till now they’ve not even given up to N50 billion since they’ve been in power,” Osodeke said.

According to ASUU, Nigerians should watch and listen closely to the presidential candidates and vote for whoever has the interest of Nigerian education in mind.

“Nigerians should look at the candidate that will be willing to fund education, and that will have the interest of Nigerian students, and the interest of the Nigerian people, that’s the candidate Nigerians should look out for.

“And for us in ASUU, the difference is that we have not seen any of them that is willing to do anything? And even all the promises made by this regime and other regimes, did they implement them? Before they are elected they will say all sorts of things, but do they implement them? What did they tell Nigerians about the system? But all of them when they came to power everything changed,” he added.

When asked if the ongoing strike is the longest in recent time, and what should be done, the don said, “We are not interested in the length. In any way, the government wants to look at it, we are not keeping any record. We just want the government to go ahead and fulfil its promises. We are not interested in how long it is. Whether is the longest or not, what we want Nigerians to do is to tell this government to implement their agreement with ASUU.”