Eminent Nigerians, civil rights lawyer, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, Governor Babaginda Aliyu of Niger State and woman activist, Mrs. Ritalori Ogbebor, have called on both the Federal Government and the Academic Staff of Universities Union to end the lingering strike, which has continued for over two months.
Aturu, who made the call in a statement on Tuesday, blamed the Federal Government for allowing the ongoing ASUU strike to linger by not making any serious attempt to resolve the problem.
He thus called on the Federal Government to implement its agreement with ASUU in order to save the nation’s higher education system.
He said, “It needs to be stressed that once an agreement has been reached by parties, it ought to be respected and implemented.
“If there is any intervening factor or reason that makes full implementation of an agreement impossible, then the parties must agree as to the way forward. It is therefore unacceptable that the Federal Government should attempt to bully ASUU to accept that it can renege on the agreement as it pleases as it is doing at the moment.”
Also, Aliyu advised members of ASUU to reconsider their position not to dialogue with the Federal Government over the issue.
He also noted that the Federal Government should stop signing agreement it could not honour.
Aliyu gave the advice in Minna, when he received the United Nations International Children Emergency Fund Country Representative in Nigeria, Mrs. Jane Gough at the Government House, Minna. He said ASUU should realise that Nigeria and the students were losing as a result of the prolonged strike.
He said in recent past Nigerian universities students were “spending more time than necessary” as a result of strike by their lecturers, a development he said was not in the interest of the country and the children.
He added, “I want to say that we should not enter into any agreement we know we are incapable of fulfilling, I appeal to ASUU to reconsider their stand because at the end of the day, it is the nation that suffers.”
Ogbebor on Monday in Lagos while addressing journalists said any act which aimed at undermining qualitative education could spell doom for the nation.
While underscoring the need for the Federal Government and the ASUU to work out modalities to end the strike in the interest of the students and the nation.
Ogbebor stressed that the strike had forced some of the undergraduates out of school, with some of them enlisting in street gangs that waste their time in cyber crime.
