….says strike national embarrassment

By Peter Duru, Makurdi

President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to end the lingering Academic Staff Union of Universities’, ASUU, strike by emulating the strategy adopted by former Predident Goodluck Jonathan in November 2013 during which he personally presided over the meeting with the aggrieved lecturers and had the knotty issues resolved.

The Convener of the Middle Belt Movement for Justice and Peace, MBMJP, Joe Bukka who gave the advise Sunday in Makurdi, said it had become imperative for the President to personally step into the matter to have it resolved in the interest of all parties without further delay.

He said “the former President Jonathan’s strategy paid off in November 2013 when the strike at the time lasted for four months and it became obvious that Nigerians resented the government for allowing the strike to linger for that long when the negotiators on the part of the government failed to make any headway.

“The then President Jonathan rose to the occasion; he summoned all the relevant government functionaries and the leadership of ASUU to a meeting which he personally presided over.

“He took charge of the negotiations in a sitting that lasted about 12 hours and at the end of that meeting agreements were reached, immediate actions taken and the strike was called off to the relief of all Nigerians.

“We urge President Buhari to adopt the same strategy at this time to have this strike called off because it is a national embarrassment that our public universities have remained shut for this long and our leaders are busy talking politics without taking cognisance of the fact that a country is in trouble when its human capital development is stagnated.

“That is the implication of having this strike linger for this long after the close to one year that was lost in 2021 due to COVID-19 and the same ASUU dispute.

“The President must now show and tell Nigerians that this is his government by assuaging the anger in the land over the strike. And he can do this by stepping in personally as his predecessor did to saved the nation and his government the embarrassment at the time.

“No doubt Nigerians are obviously not happy with this government over severally unfulfilled promises and worsening insecurity and economic downtown; and allowing the ASUU strike to linger is adding to the woes of the people and further demarketing the All Progressives Congress, APC, when elections are just few months away.”