By Joshua Hussain
The State Minister for education, Emeka Nwajiuba has decried the decision of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, to persist in its strike action despite negotiations and pleas by Federal Government.
This is coming just as the strike has reached 51 days as of today, April 6.
In an interview with journalists, Nwajiuba opined that the act of shutting down universities nationwide by ASUU, was pure wickedness on the part of ASUU, the Joint Action Committee of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Education, as well as affiliate bodies.
“We are negotiating with the Polytechnics and Colleges of Education and the same thing ASUU is asking for is the same thing they are asking for but they are willing to continue working.
“The only place we have a suspension of work is the ASUU, SSANU and NASU on account of things they believe are owed them. We believe every union is entitled to make these requests. The government has agreed with them. Government is only releasing money as they have it.
“The renegotiation committee has always been constituted; the only departure is in the willingness of ASUU, SSANU and NASU to continue working while the same entitlements are on.
“The others have same demands but are willing to continue working while they get their entitlements. We have consistently said if you disrupt academic programmes because of one entitlement you are supposed to get, you will eventually get the entitlement but our children would have lost the time they are supposed to learn, you are just being mean.
“There is no point disrupting everybody’s life; those people can’t regain their lives but you can regain yours; because you haven’t got it; everybody else must lose something?
“The strike has not produced the money they are asking for, if the money was there they would have been paid the day they started the strike. Government has heard them, they are not wrong but the same way government has said they will get the money, for every strike they have embarked on; they still get their money but human beings have lost times.
“They are not only being wicked to the government but they are wicked to the human beings that constitute Nigeria.”
However, the National President, ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, has reacted to Nwajiuba’s claims, regarding them as frivolous.
“I will not honour people like Nwajiuba with my response. If the government wants the children of the ordinary Nigerian people to have good education like their children who are schooling abroad, they would have resolved the problem within one week. Ask Nwajiuba why the Ministry of Education has refused to meet with the ASUU?” the ASUU President said.
In solidarity, the Chairman of the University of Lagos Chapter of ASUU, Dr Dele Ashiru, issued a response, tagging Nwajiuba’s comments as provocative, callous and insensate.
Ashiru also expressed his indifference towards academic unions that have decided to continue with work despite Government’s failure to meet their demands.
“This is the kind of reaction you get from those who became ministers of the Federal Republic based on quota system. If the minister knows that ASUU would eventually get what it wants why wait until the system is shut down?
“Is it sane for the conditions of service of a worker to remain the same in the last 12 years? The remark by the minister is therefore, to say the least, provocative, callous and insensate. As for ASUP and COEASU, if they are comfortable with empty promises from insensitive ruining elites, good for them,” Ashiru said.