The striking university lecturers in the country have advised President Muhammadu Buhari to take action by implementing the latest Memorandum of Agreement and the Memorandum of Action as well as the renegotiated agreement between them and the Federal Government rather than to continue to lament their prolonged industrial action.
They said it was only evidence-based action that addresses their concerns that could make them call off their ongoing five-month-old strike.
The lecturers under their umbrella body, the Academic Staff Union of Universities( ASUU) gave this position on Tuesday as a reaction to a media report credited to President Buhari when some state governors visited him in Daura, Katsina State on Monday, asking the striking lecturers to go back to class citing the huge adverse consequences of the prolonged strike on students and the country future as reasons for his call.
The Lagos Zone coordinator of ASUU, Dr Adelaja Olukoya, who gave the position in a statement made available to Tribune Online, said this latest comment by President Buhari on their strike is comical and his call to ASUU to go back to class without doing the needful, is laughable.
He said ASUU, in the first instance, would not have embarked on strike if not for what he described as crass insensitivity, ineptitude and indifference of the government to the fate of Nigeria’s public university system under President Buhari’s watch.
He said for the fact that it is not only ASUU that is on strike at the moment but all other unions such as non-academic staff union in the nation’s public university system and other tertiary educational levels in the country are also on strike for similar reasons as ASUU, “belied and exposed the ridiculous disposition and propaganda to paint ASUU black in the face of the Nigerian public.”
