…Keyamo Tells Parents To Beg ASUU
…NANS demands the sack of the Minister of Education
President Muhammadu Buhari on 19 July 2022 gave the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, two weeks to resolve the over five-month-old strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) as well as other university unions that later downed tools.
The news elicited jubilation from Nigerians, especially parents who believed that the end of the lingering strike might be in sight.
However, President Buhari’s two-week ultimatum ended on 2 August and the strike has yet to be called off for students in public universities to return to the classroom.
And there seems to be no ray of hope for the calling off of the strike by the university unions as ASUU extended it’s over five-month strike by four weeks. The implication being that students in public universities will spend extra one month at home.
Announcing the extension on 1 August, a day before the expiration of the president’s ultimatum to the Minister of Education, the president of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, said the extension would give the federal government more time to meet the union’s demands.
The demands include the withdrawal of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system (IPPIS) and the adoption of the University, Transparency, and Accountability Solution (UTAS), among others.
Following the development, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo (SAN), on Friday called on Nigerian parents and guardians whose children are affected by the shutdown of academic activities in government-owned universities to appeal to ASUU to call off the lingering strike.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today yesterday, Keyamo noted that the government had done its best to end the strike to no avail.
“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,” he said.
ASUU had derided President Buhari for his directive urging Nigerians not to interpret it as an indication of the government’s seriousness on the issue.
“It is not a measure of seriousness. It is not the first time the Presidency would give such directive and nothing would be done,” Lagos Zonal Chairman and a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the union, Dr. Adelaja Odukoya, had remarked.
Frustrated by the continued stay of students at home, the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), has called for the immediate sack of the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, over the failure to resolve the impasse between the federal government and the academic union.
NANS National President, Sunday Asefon, said on Friday that their incapability to resolve the crisis by Adamu smacked of ineptitude and gross incompetence to handle such a pivotal ministry.
Asefon bemoaned that ASUU had gone on strike for a cumulative period of 18 months within the seven years Adamu has been superintending over the ministry, adding that the country can no longer afford to entrust its Ministry of Education in the hands of those that do not have the proficiency to manage the crisis.
“Since he became minister, ASUU has gone on strike for almost 18 months cumulatively and the entire educational structure of our tertiary education system is in total shamble under his watch,” he said.
“It is, therefore, imperative to call on the President to immediately relieve him of his duty in the ministry and bring in a more competent hand, educated, experienced, physically fit, and willing enough to begin the process of salvaging the debris of the collapse of the education system in Nigeria with the hope of rebuilding it.”
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