From Oluseye Ojo, Ibadan
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), yesterday, said signing and implementing the renegotiated 2009 agreement with the Federal Government will end the more than five months strike.
Chairman of the union, University of Ibadan branch, Prof Ayo Akinwole, made the disclosure in an interview with journalists in Ibadan, Oyo State.
He claimed the Federal Government is largely uncoordinated, citing the case where the president gives order on the ASUU crisis and his media aide deny he gave such order.
He said members of the union were also affected by the strike, not only financially, but in their academic pursuits, saying many of the lecturers are doing their doctoral degrees in public universities.
He said most of the lecturers would also be affected as their promotions would be delayed and that their children were also at home due to the strike.
“We got here by collective negligence of electing incompetent people into public offices. The fight for quality education for the children of the masses has become a class war among the economic elite, the working class and the ruling class, and until we rise up and demand accountability from those in office, to do what is in the best interest of the majority, cycle of strikes and underdevelopment will not stop.
“Nigerians continue to elect people who don’t care about them. We worship those who have money than those with right virtues and interest of the society at heart. Our renegotiation ought to have ended by 2012, but here we are in 2022, and yet the government is playing games with us.
“We are asking for a renegotiation of existing agreements, that will position our members as human beings working in a decent place, we are asking for Revitalization of Public Universities through appropriate funding. We are saying we have a better homegrown alternative of University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS), we are saying check proliferation of universities that you cannot fund, and we are saying Nigerians deserve to be ranked among top 100 in the world if our leaders invest in education. We should be developing our own solutions not depending on others. Sadly, we have uncoordinated Presidency and cabinet working at cross purposes. This strike is not about ASUU, it is about the future of the Nigerian children.”