Seek permanent cure to ASUU strikes, APC chieftain tells FG

The Director General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Alhaji Salihu Mohammed Lukman has asked the federal government to seek permanent cure to frequent strike action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

He argued that prolonged strikes were helping the Boko Haram insurgents to actualise their ideology of crippling western education in the country.

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ASUU had on Wednesday, suspended its nine-month strike action conditionally, and promised to embark on a fresh strike if the federal government did not live up to the terms of agreement with it.

In a statement on Sunday in Abuja, titled, “ASUU and Indeterminate Power Struggle – The Boko Haram Logic”, the APC stalwart said ASUU had spent over four years on strike in the last 21 years, adding that a fresh strike action was imminent in the first quarter of 2021.

“It is clear that with reference to ASUU – FG agreement, Nigerian public university education, and by extension, the whole education system is in a state of perpetual flux.

“Nobody is right and everyone is wrong. Neither ASUU nor FG is right. Both ASUU and FG are wrong. The best way to demonstrate this is with reference to the agreement that ASUU members are celebrating.

“Part of it include the release of N40 billion Earned Academic Allowances and another N30 billion revitalisation fund.

“There are other unresolved issues, which include the demand for the replacement of the Integrated Payroll and Personal Information System (IPPIS) with University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) and implementation of the FG-ASUU agreement of 2009 bordering on university autonomy and funding.

“As a result, once there is a meeting in February or March 2021, to review implementation of the agreement, Nigerians may likely start hearing allegations of non-implementation that may be followed with fresh rounds of ultimatum.

“How can anyone with a child whose dream and aspiration should include being educated, celebrate in any form the closure of schools? What difference is such a logic from the Boko Haram objective of abolishing western education?” he queried.