ASUU to Buhari: We’ll continue strike till 2023 if necessary

 

.Insists action is in students’ interest

.Our agreement will mature this week, says FG

By AKOR SYLVESTER-Abuja

 

 

 

ASUU, University of Calabar (UNICAL) branch chairman, said the body is prepared to remain on strike till 2023 if necessary

 

University Lecturers do not seem to be moved by the latest passionate appeal by President Muhammadu Buhari to return to classes nationwide because of the students.

 

This is because the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, University of Calabar (UNICAL) branch has said the body is prepared to remain on strike till 2023 if necessary.

 

 

Chairman of ASUU in UNICAL, Dr Edor J. Edor said the body is prepared to continue the strike until the Federal Government is ready to meet the demands of the body.

 

Osodeke-and-Ngige ASUU to Buhari: We’ll continue strike till 2023 if necessary; insist action is in students’ interest

According to DAILY POST, the university don made the statement while reacting to Buhari’s appeal that ASUU should call off the lingering industrial action.

 

He said Buhari’s appeal is a political gimmick, insisting the ASUU strike was embarked upon in the interest of the same student the president is blackmailing them with.

 

He called on the Federal Government to attend to the demands of the body, if it genuinely cares about the students, as the lecturers are willing to continue the strike till next year, despite their salary being withheld.

 

 

 

Edor said: “It’s actually because of the plight of the students that ASUU is on strike. It’s because our students have no reagents in their laboratories, no libraries, no good hostels, no recreational parks, no facilities in the universities, and no lecture theatres, which is exactly why we are talking about the revitalization of universities.

 

“It’s exactly because of our students that we are asking the Federal Government to pay lecturers a living wage and not a slave wage, so that lecturers would be able to research and be in a good state of mind, mental health, so they would be able to teach the students.

 

“So, calling on lecturers to suspend the strike because of the plight of the students, let me put it back to Mr President that we are on strike because of the plight of the students.

 

 

 

“If the welfare of the lecturers is compromised, then it will rub off on the students. The ripple effect goes down straight to the students. If the lecturer is not well paid, the student is affected, if the universities are not properly funded, the students are affected, so it’s because of the students that we are on strike.

 

“The students themselves have realized this; that is why they are calling on the Government to do the needful as quickly as possible. That is why students are blocking the highway; they are issuing communiques because they know that ASUU is fighting for their good.

 

“This is a political ploy, trick, and gimmick taken too far until concrete action is taken. They have told us this severally before that, ‘suspend and we will do this and that’, several suspensions that we have passed; even the latest one in 2020. What have they done? Nothing.

 

 

 

There is nothing wrong with the strike lingering till 2023. We are very prepared, they stopped our salaries so what else will they do? We are prepared to stay on strike till whenever they are ready to inject funds into the educational sector of this country, just the same way they are doing in aviation, politics, and INEC.

 

“We are prepared to be hungry for as long as it takes the Government to fund the educational sector. We are prepared to remain in the trenches. Have you forgotten that in 2020, they seized our salaries for nine months during the pandemic? From now till May 2023, it’s not up to nine months? So we are prepared.

 

“They would soon start blackmailing us, sending assassins against us, but we are prepared.

 

“M. President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, please consider the plight of we Nigerian students and improve the salaries of lecturers, consider the plight of students and inject funds for the revitalization of universities in Nigeria.”

 

Meanwhile, The Federal Government has expressed optimism that the agreements reached at its tripartite-plus meeting with the  university based unions, would start yielding fruits this week.

 

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said this after the meeting held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa Abuja.

 

The four university-based unions that are currently on strike include the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), the Non Academic Staff Union (NASU) and the National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT).

 

Briefing journalists on the outcome of the tripartite meeting, Ngige said they had cordial and fruitful discussion, looked at the issues dispassionately and reached some agreements, to the satisfaction of everybody in attendance.

 

He explained that the discussion was moved out of the Labour Ministry to make it tripartite plus while the Government brought in some interested parties such as the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council  (NIREC) headed by the Sultan of Sokoto as Chairman and the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Sampson Ayokunle as Co- Chairman.

 

He said, “We discussed. Everybody was happy. We reached some agreements and we hope that by next week, those agreements will start maturing and the four unions will also go and brief their members, so that they can call off the strike.”

 

The Minister added that they put some timelines on some issues like the 2009 agreement as it affects the renegotiation of conditions of service and wage review, which, according to him,  would be concluded next week.

 

Making opening remarks earlier, the Chief of Staff to the President and Chairman of the tripartite meeting, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari recalled that the President on the prompting of NIREC, directed that he should lead a team, comprising of the Ministers of Labour, Finance and Education to work with leaders of ASUU and other unions as well as other stakeholders, to really find a lasting solution to this perennial problems in our educational system.

 

Gambari lamented that this perennial problems have culminated in the mutilation of the nation’s educational calendar.

 

“When students graduate, they get automatic admission to institutions of higher learning elsewhere in the world. Not long ago, we had professors and students from universities in other countries, coming to work in our universities.

 

“Not long ago, we had a calendar and predictability of when a students enters the university and when he or she can graduate. But we all know that all of that has changed and the impact on our educational system and even the reputation of our universities has been devastating.”

 

Gambari assured that Mr. President was determined to put an end to this negativity and get students and teachers back to the classroom, so that students would be in the classrooms and not at home during the educational calendar year.

 

He noted that the professors also belong to the classroom and research laboratories and should not always be out on strike.

 

“Parents expect their wards to be in the classroom and we all know that as the president stated earlier this morning, no country could develop without a sound educational system.

 

“We need predictable and quality education so that the human capital required to move our country forward will further be developed in a consistent manner and in which will also earn some credibility in the international system. It was in this light that the meeting was convened and I want to commend on behalf of Mr. President, the efforts made by the Co-chair of NIREC in having meetings with ASUU and having succeeded in taking some steps forward.”

 

He however noted that there are still some areas that have not been resolved, saying the meeting provides an opportunity to identify where progress has been made and the areas remaining.

 

He said they were united in one common objective to end the impasse in the university system for this country, which already has some challenges, that could not be surmounted without sound educational foundation.

 

Noting that the country had a stable education system in the past, Gambari stressed the need to return to the past in order to create a future of sustainable quality education for the children.

 

In his own remarks, Sultan Abubakar assured that all hope was not lost in the resolution of the strikes in the university system.

 

According to him, “once we sit together to discuss a problem, we believe that the end is in sight as dialogue is the best option in resolving all issues.”

 

Abubakar explained that they were part of this tripartite meeting as the moral voices of the Nigeria, being vastly populated by Christians and Muslims.

 

He said as NIREC, they came on board to offer their own voices to all concerned to show that they were worried and concerned that the  children are at home, since an idle mind is the devil’s playground.

 

He said they also took into consideration the political activities this year, leading to the general election next year.

 

He warned that an opportunity should not be provided for those politicians who don’t want things to go right, to use those children as political thugs.

 

Abubakar once more called on the unions to suspend this strike while negotiations continue.

 

“I don’t think it will be so beneficial to us while our children are at home and threatening violence across the country, blocking roads and airports and we as elders sit down watching. The best thing is to go back to the classroom and we continue negotiation. We will continue sitting together until the final solution is attained. It is not impossible. It can be done as soon as possible. It is an issue of give and take. There must be compromise. As we all know, at the end of it all, there will be no Victor , no vanquished. It is important to see us working to put our educational system back on track.

 

“It  will be very dangerous to allow our children to keep  sitting idly at home. That is why we plead with the unions to see the need to call off the strike while we keep negotiating.”

 

In his remark, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President, Supo Ayokunle, thanked the Government for the confidence reposed in them to be part of the meeting.

 

He noted that the poor funding of the universities did not start with this government, but borne out of long periods of neglect by previous governments, which snowballed to our present situation.

 

He  equally appealed to the unions to back down on their strikes and return to work in the interest of the children  and future of the country.

 

In their separate remarks, the leadership of the unions expressed displeasure at the incessant strikes, which could be avoided if Government gave quality attention to education.