Strike: Students may stay at home for months, ASUU warns

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has warned that the ongoing industrial action may be prolonged as no concrete resolution has been reached in the negotiation with the federal government.

 

The union called on parents and students to show understanding over the development so as to save the nation’s university system from total decay.

ASUU’s national president, Biodun Ogunyemi, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos yesterday.

Ogunyemi said representatives of the union met with the federal government on November 26 but that the meeting ended in a deadlock.

NAN reports that university lecturers had on November 5 embarked on a strike, demanding the implementation of the 2009 agreement it entered into with the federal government.

The lecturers are also calling for full implementation of the Memorandum of Action (MoA) it signed with the government in 2017, improved working conditions and welfare package as well as upgrade of facilities in universities across the country.

Ogunyemi said: “The strike is not to short-change the students, parents and other key stakeholders but to save the country’s university system from collapse.
“We want to call on our students and parents to show understanding with our struggle as we are in this together.

“The whole essence of this struggle is to ensure that our students get worthy and deserving certificates that they will be proud of anywhere they may find themselves in the world.

“The struggle is to ensure too that we save Nigerian universities from going the way our public primary and secondary schools have gone.

“Today, most parents are sending their children and wards to private primary and secondary schools around the country because of the perceived or alleged falling standards.

“We do not want our universities to go the same way because manyparents may not be able to afford the private university fees,’’ he said.
of meeting to that effect.’’

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