The students of public universities are still sitting idle at home with not even the slightest hope in sight about resumption of teaching and learning activities in the nation’s public universities.
If the government is doing all it can to persuade the Academic Staff Union of Universities to resume work, at least, the students can have least of hope that a series of negotiations with ASUU might eventually lead to settlement of this industrial disagreement.
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But the reverse is the case, as the country’s managers of tertiary education sub-sector don’t give a damn about ending this industrial dispute.
It’s quite unfortunate to note that both ministers of labour and education are not doing enough to address the situation.
This is a clear sign that the strike will continue for a long time.
One must always ask these questions. For how long it will take this government to meet ASUU’s demands.
When will the ASUU strike get Buhari’s intervention?
Since the labour and the education ministries failed to settle this crisis, Buhari’s intervention might bring a definite solution to ASUU’s grievances.
We can’t heap all the blame on ASUU alone since the authorities failed to even engage them in round table discussions.
How do you expect ASUU to give up on their demands when authorities seem to see it as weakness to engage in deliberations that may lead to a solution to ASUU’s problems?
Instead, the present administration chose an insensitive manner of stopping the academics’ wages with the resultant effect of starving them with their respective families.
The bitter truth is we are all victims of government’s nonchalant attitudes to our needs.
We have clearly seen how government officials devoted much of their time to settle resident doctors’ grievances.
Therefore, I wonder what on earth is stopping extending that to ASUU.
Having spent almost half the academic year at home, government should be considerate about plights of the students.
Abbas Datti,
