Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), on Monday, carpeted the Federal Government for allegedly deliberately failing to reach a consensus and a final determination concerning the lingering industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
HURIWA said the unwillingness of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Administration to resolve its differences with the striking lecturers means that the central government has adopted the ideology of Boko Haram which forbids citizens to pursue academic and Western education.
HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement, said the Federal Government was grossly irresponsible and insensitive to the plight of millions of youths wasting away at home only because the children of top government officials were either schooling overseas or in the few exotic and expensive local private universities that were not on strike; like the publicly funded universities whereby millions of children of the wretched of the earth and the hoi polloi were enlisted and who have been forced to idle away at home since five months ago and now the ASUU has extended its strike by a further four weeks of excruciating staying idle at their homes.
According to the ASUU, the FG’s side led by Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige; has demonstrated irresponsibility through the extension of the month-long strike, accusing the federal government of not attending with honesty, the issues that have come up in the negotiations between the Government and the starving members of ASUU. The Rights group said whereas the striking teachers were desirous of ending the strike, the politicians were so callously irresponsible to attend to these issues.
Recall that ASUU had on February 14 embarked on industrial action to press home its demands, including the payment of about N1trillion Revitalisation Fund and Earned Academic Allowances.
ASUU had subsequently extended the strike a few times with the latest four-week extension announced on Monday, August 1, 2022, days after the Nigeria Labour Congress held a nationwide solidarity strike with ASUU on July 26 and 27.
President Buhari, on July 19, 2022, gave the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, two weeks to resolve the ongoing ASUU strike but even at the expiration of the ultimatum, the federal government has been unable to reach a truce with the striking lecturers for students to return to class.
According to Onwubiko, “The four-week extension by ASUU on August 1, 2022, is a bad new month gift to Nigerian parents and students who have been shut out of the classroom since February 14, 2022. These students who should be in class studying assiduously are now busy watching Big Brother Naija unproductively and idling away on social media and follow Big Brother Naija principally because of idleness.”
The statement reads in part: “Whilst ASUU strike has been ongoing, security situations have escalated in the last six months as terrorists, bandits, fraudsters, ritualists, prostitutes, amongst others, have recruited impressionable hands from the vast pool of idle university youths.
“HURIWA condemns in totality, the fresh strike by ASUU based on FG’s lackadaisical attitude and lack of commitment to end the stalemated negotiations whilst government officials’ children study abroad. HURIWA said the government should be ashamed and threatened to drag FG to court should the government fail to end the strike before the end of the month.
“We are seeking the support of good statesmen and women so we Institute a case in the Federal High Court to compel President Muhammadu Buhari to end the vicious ideology of Boko Haram and immediately open the public universities.”
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