The Federal Government has asked parents whose children are affected by the ongoing strike by universities and other government-owned tertiary institutions to take over negotiations with lecturers to end the strike.
The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, specifically asked parents to appeal to the Academic Staff Union of Universities to call off its strike which has lingered for over five months.
Keyamo appeared on Channels TV’s ‘Politics Today’ on Friday, where he said the Federal Government would not allow ASUU to push it into borrowing money to meet the union’s demands.
Advertisement
“The moment they went on strike, we intervened, what is the manner again beyond that ? Even before the strike began, we called them to a meeting, what manner is more than that? It’s not like we left them to go on strike first and we were sleeping, as the talk started, they still went on strike.
“You can not allow one sector of the economy to hold you down and then blackmail you to go and borrow N1.2 trillion and our total income is around N6.1 trillion and we have roads to build, health centres and other sectors to take care of.
“I will tell the parents, everybody to go and beg ASUU like the President said the other time, those who know them should appeal to their sense of patriotism. The nation can not ground to a halt because we want to take care of the demands of ASUU,” said Keyamo who was recently appointed as the campaign spokesperson of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate.
THE WHISTLER reported that ASUU had on Monday extended its strike which commenced on February 14, 2022, by another four weeks.
The union extended the industrial action by another two months on March 14, to allow the government meet its demands which include the release of the revitalisation funds to universities, release of earned allowances to university lecturers, deployment of the University Transparency Accountability System for the payment of lecturers’ salaries and allowances, as well as the renegotiation of the ASUU-Federal Government 2009 agreement.
On May 9, the union announced that the strike had been extended by 12 weeks following the government’s failure to yield to its demands.
Last month, President Muhammadu Buhari called on the university lecturers to reconsider their position on the strike, saying “enough is enough.’’
“We hope that ASUU will sympathise with the people on the prolonged strike. Truly, enough is enough for keeping students at home. Don’t hurt the next generation for goodness sake,’’ the presidency quoted Buhari as saying while hosting some leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) during the Sallah break in Daura, Katsina State.