The Northern Governors Forum has urged the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to work with the Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari to end the ongoing strike.
According to reports, the governors made the appeal after a meeting with the Northern Traditional Rulers Council on Monday, September 12, 2022 in Abuja.
Recall that the ongoing ASUU strike that grounded academic activities in public universities in the country started on February 14, 2022 and has entered day 212 today, September 14, 2022.
The union is demanding the release of revitalization funds for universities, renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, release of earned allowances for university lecturers, and deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).
The government claimed to have addressed most of the union’s demands, including the release of N50b for the payment of earned allowances for academic and non-academic staff of universities, but said the union had not paid the arrears debt of the strike period.
ASUU also insisted on not calling off the ongoing strike until the arrears are settled.
But in a statement by the Director of Press and Public Affairs to the Plateau State Governor, Dr. Makut Simon Macham, on behalf of the forum’s chairman, Governor Simon Lalong, said the ASUU strike is punishment for most students from the region who attended the public. universities.
Similarly, the Nasarawa State House of Assembly urged the ASUU chapter at the state university in Keffi to withdraw from the union’s strike.
This, it said, is in the interest of the poor masses and the overall development of the state.
The Chairman of the House Committee on Education, Science and Technology, Daniel Ogazi, made the appeal yesterday in Lafia, the state capital, at a meeting with officials of ASUU and the state university.
Ogazi (APC Kokona East), who is the Deputy Majority Leader, said the state government and the House were committed to making the university attain international standards.
“We are calling this meeting to appeal to you to suspend the ASUU strike and resume work in the interest of poor students and the state as a whole.
“… Governor Abdullahi Sule and the House, led by Speaker Ibrahim Balarabe Abdullahi are committed to making the university among the best in the country.
Meanwhile, students who blocked some major highways yesterday due to the ongoing ASUU strike have vowed to continue until the issue is resolved.
Afeez Akinteye, the National Vice President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) Foreign Affairs, addressed journalists at the scene: “Our demand is not new; it is for the government to end the ASUU strike now.
“We’ve had enough of this. We started the protest today; we will continue until the strike is called off.
“We don’t want to know how they are going to do it, because the government has the money and the power.
“We are only interested in going back to the classrooms, they must fund education and end the ASUU strike.
“With the new leadership of NANS, it is not going to be business as usual,” said Akinteye.
He said the protest will be continuous, adding that students are ready to give whatever it takes to go back to the classrooms.
“We have packed our loads from our homes and we are now ready for this fight until the strike is called off.
More than 500 of us from various universities nationwide are holding this protest saying ‘End ASUU strike permanently,” Akinteye said.
