The TUC has Urged Federal Government To End ASUU Strike
Not happy about the ongoing academic situation in the country, the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, (TUC) has called on the Federal Government to look into the ongoing strike by the university lecturers and immediately have a dialogue with them in order not to aggravate the insecurity challenge in the country.
In a statement signed by the President General of TUC, comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama, the Congress frowned at the fact that an agreement that was entered into in 2009 between ASUU and the federal government is still dragging eight years after, though the union was magnanimous enough to sign another Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2013 wherein the issues at stake were duly interrogated.
“On our part, we have examined the issues raised by the lecturers and did not find them wanting in any: they have asked for revitalization of public universities; the registration of the Nigerian Universities Pension Management Company and pension matters, among others.
“The reason we are where we are today as a nation is because the UNESCO benchmark of 26 percent for education has never been met, not even half of it by successive governments. Nations that are doing well today do not pay lips service to the education sector.
“We feel pained by this development because virtually all the people in power today attended public schools. They were fed from public treasury. Some schooled abroad on scholarship. They have made nonsense of our education system because their children school abroad, and of course they go for graduation ceremony”, TUC added.
The congress also added that more youth may go into crime as a result of the ongoing strike. “The dictum: “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop” may play out here again. As at today there is no part of the country that is crime free. Only a week ago, worshippers were killed in a church; insecurity in the north has not been abated.
“In the west, it has been a harvest of kidnappings and ritual killings. The news is all over on the social media about Nigerian migrants dying on the high seas almost on daily basis. And now ASUU strike again?”
