Festus Keyamo, SAN, the minister of state for labor and employment, has urged parents whose children are enrolled in government-run tertiary institutions to urge the Academic Staff Union of Universities to end its ongoing strike.
On Monday, February 14, 2022, the academic union issued a nationwide strike declaration, which has continued to this day. The lecturers are calling for the release of funds for university revitalization, as well as the release of earned allowances for university lecturers, the implementation of the University Transparency Accountability System for the payment of university lecturers’ salaries and allowances, and, among other things, a renegotiation of the 2009 agreement between ASUU and the Federal Government.
Several meetings between the striking lecturers and the Federal government has ended in deadlocks. Last week, President Buhari gave the Minister of Education to resolve the crisis within two weeks. The ultimatum ended on Thursday, August 4.
While speaking on Channels TV this evening, Keyamo said 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”he said