Festus Keyamo, SAN, the state minister for labor and employment, has urged Nigerian parents and guardians to urge the Academic Staff Union of Universities to end its protracted strike on behalf of their parents who are now unable to attend classes at government-run universities.
The nationwide strike was called by ASUU on Monday, February 14, 2022.
The union claims that the government disregarded a number of its demands, including the release of funds for university revitalization, the payment of earned allowances for university lecturers, the implementation of the University Transparency Accountability System for the payment of salaries and allowances of university lecturers, and the renegotiation of the ASUU-Federal Government 2009 agreement.
Since the strike began, stakeholders had called on the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to find a lasting solution to the strike and increase funding of tertiary institutions.
Featuring on a programme on Channels Television, Keyamo noted that the government had done its best and appealed to parents to “beg” ASUU.
“The moment they went on strike, we intervened, what is the manner again beyond that ? Even before the strike began, we called them to a meeting, what manner is more than that? It’s not like we left them to go on strike first and we were sleeping, as the talk started, they still went on strike.
“You can not allow one sector of the economy to hold you down and then blackmail you to go and borrow N1.2 trillion and our total income is around N6.1 trillion and we have roads to build, health centres and other sectors to take care of.
“I will tell the parents, everybody to go and beg ASUU like the President said the other time, those who know them should appeal to their sense of patriotism. The nation can not ground to a halt because we want to take care of the demands of ASUU”.
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