Chris Ngige, minister of Labour and Employment has scheduled a meeting with the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Tuesday, February 22 in his office to resolve the four-week warning strike.
ASUU had on February 14 declared a month’s warning strike after a meeting of the union’s national leaders to find a means of driving home its demands after what it considered absolute insincerity and unfaithfulness to keep agreement on the side of the federal government.
However, the federal government through Adamu Adamu, the minister of education had stated that ASUU was insincere by embarking on a strike while negotiation was ongoing, but promised the government will reconvene a meeting with the leaders of ASUU to resolve the issues at stake.
Meanwhile, some Nigerians are calling on ASUU to include lecturers in private universities in the union to make it more robust and encompassing.
Francis Arebinne believes that inclusion of all private universities to the union will make their actions more impressive, because most of the politicians and wealthy stakeholders in the education sector have their children in private universities.
Read also: ASUU strike: FG seeks end to the impasse – Adamu Adamu
“Both the public and private universities will be affected, because all the so-called big men have their children all in private universities,” he said.
For Dalhatu Adamu, the reason ASUU is reluctant to include lecturers in private universities in the union is because most of the lecturers have their children in private universities, hence, the strike does not really affect them nor the politicians.
Some others are pleading to ASUU to listen to the federal government this time because they, ASUU is actually working for the masses.
Issa Rahmat frowned at the insistent strikes ravaging the academic calendar in Nigeria. “We are tired and confused, some students are even contemplating whether to drop out. This thing called strike has affected students beyond what you can imagine. ASUU should implement another method other than strike in driving home its grievances with the federal government,” she said.
