Director General, National Institute for Legislative and Democraric Studies, Professor Abubakar Olanrewaju Sulaiman, has explained the rationale behinde the inceasant face off between members of the Academic Staff Union of Univeristies (ASSU) and the federal government.
Sulaiman, a professor of Political Science and Interntional Relations , also acknowledged the intervention of the leadership of the two chambers of the national assembly in resolving the lingering industrial dispute between ASSU and federal government .
He however predicted that Nigerians should expect a re-occurence of such trade dispute again in future .
Speaking with newsmen in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital, the former minister of national planning, said the two parties had always maintained a firm positions which always made it difficult to resslolve industrial dispute.
“The trade dispute on campuses between ASUU and government, on the other hand is being resolved, I want to believe that.
“The National Assembly have waded in to the crisis. It is a persistent thing. Even after this, another one will still come because resources are very limited and demands of academics are unlimited, and when you give to them, it is in the best interest of Nigeria people, our students and our children.
“Government in managing resources need to have one and let go the other one. It is not an easy thing to do so, what we have today as TETFUND, UBEC emanated from the struggle of ASUU. Nigerians should not see academics or trade unionists as hoodlums. These are intellectuals These are people that trained all of us and still training our children. Therefore, their demands should be seen from the objective point of view.
“And for my collegues in ASSU ,lets appreciate government predicament, we have lockdown, prices of oil at the international market have gone down. We are resulting to a lot of loans to survive and even to implement our budget, a lot of crisis. When you have these kind of crisis, I think we just have to appreciate ourselves, the one government could do, they should accept it, the one they could not do, they should let go. And with the intervention of the Senate President, the Speaker of the House, it is being resolved and I want to believe in next one week or so, ASUU will call off the strike,” he said.”
