Fayemi Begs ASUU to Shelve Strike for Student’s Sake

Chinedu Ibeakanma
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Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi has called on the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to shelve the ongoing industrial action in the best interest of the students.

Fayemi stressed the need for urgent and holistic engagement between Federal Government and the leadership of ASUU in order to bring an end to the current impasse.

The governor made this appeal in Ado-Ekiti while playing host to members of the Board of Trustees of the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation, led by its Chairman and former Governor of Niger State, Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, in his office.

“We need to get to a point of convergence with ASUU, but I also think ASUU should begin to look at this from the position of their importance. It is the students of the ordinary Nigerians who attend the local universities. So, even if it is for the sake of ordinary Nigerians who have children in these universities and cannot afford to send their children to private universities or abroad.

“Whatever the areas are, we would like to engage them, not as Federal Government but as concerned parties at the level of government who feel that we can still work out an arrangement in which you don’t completely dictate to your employer how he pays your salaries.

“If agreement has been entered into and if it is not going to be honoured, you owe a duty to urge other party to review it consensually and then come up with something that is mutually acceptable to both sides.

Speaking further, Fayemi who posited that education remained the greatest antidote to poverty, said education should be refocused at the national level due to its importance to national development.

“Education in Nigeria should be treated nationally. It requires a national approach; it cannot just be isolated state by state, and particularly for regulatory purpose, in terms of standard of the curriculum and in terms of supervisory engagement. We really need to do things that will make us appear as if cherish the importance of education in the lives of our citizens”, he noted.

This post was written by Chinedu Ibeakanma.

The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.

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