It is a known fact that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) struggles to provide effective and sound education to our youths. The union has also strived, over the years, to change Nigeria’s system of education, not just by lecturing, but also by working with the Nigerian government to figure out the challenges facing the sector and resolve them.
The union has been standing to protect the value of the teaching profession as they voice out against poor income, lack of welfare and failure to reach out to the necessary demands of the lecturers who sacrifice so much for the sake of developing Nigeria’s education and its people in general. The issue, however, remains unresolved as the federal government pays no heed to the union’s demands and vowed to implement something different from how it originated.
After embarking on eight months strike as part of the action to call the attention of the federal government to deliver on its promises by providing proper funding for Nigerian universities, the union called off its strike in deference to a court order.
But, the federal government failed to pay the backlog of the lecturer’s salaries and paid just a percentage of the October salary.
Sincerely, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) deserves honour from the federal government because of its dogged determination to ensure sound education in our universities. Its members worked hard in ensuring better education as well as productive students who go out to become useful citizens.
The federal government should pay members of ASUU their eight months’ outstanding salaries because they had struggled for Nigeria’s universities and their students.
Since the federal government wants to develop the education sector, actions must be taken to avoid dragging the union into another strike. The government should kindly honour the agreement and release the outstanding salaries to support them in giving effective education.
Amina Abdulrahman, Department of Mass Communication, Borno State University
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