President Muhammadu Buhari has appealed to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), to consider the plight of the students and call off the strike.
He also appealed to the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) to exercise patience as the government find ways to resolve the crisis.
The President made this appeal at the 19th National Productivity Day Celebration and Conferment of the National Productivity Order of Merit Award, held at the State House Conference Center, Abuja.
Buhari recalled his February 1 directive to his Chief of Staff, Ibrahim Gambari, and the ministers of education, labour, and employment, Adamu Adamu and Chris Ngige respectively, as a team to address the concerns of the striking aggrieved workers’ unions.
Since ASUU had mentioned in a statement on Monday that the President’s directive was issued, no meeting had been held by the concerned officials to resolve the conflicts.
ASUU had concluded that the government’s lack to show concern about its demands forced it to extend the three-month-old strike by another three months.
What you missed!
- The association decided to extend the strike action on Monday, 9th May 2022, following the emergency meeting held on Sunday, 8th May 2022 at the Comrade Festus Iyayi National Secretariat, University of Abuja, Abuja with the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in attendance.”
- Reports have it that there was confusion surrounding the ASUU strike, as the union alleged that the Federal Government does not take the issue seriously as expected.
- This was mentioned by ASUU when it stated that it did not receive any notice of a meeting, which was supposed to hold on Sunday, from the Ministry of Labour and Employment over its ongoing strike.
- According to ASUU, the Minister had not called its members and the group is not begging them to meet and will not go to them if there is no invitation.
- The ASUU boss mentioned, “No, we have not received any notice of meeting from them. They did not call us. We are not begging them to meet with us and we will not go to them if they do not invite us. It is part of his (Ngige’s) political campaign; we did not receive an invite.