The All Progressives Congress (APC) has condemned the Federal Government’s insincere and amateurish handling of the strike that has paralyzed academic work in public universities in the country for the third month running.
In a statement issued in Abuja,Wednesday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the tepid and half-hearted way the government has handled the strike has shown that it does not place much premium on education, which is the path to national development.
It said there is no better indication of the government’s disdain for education than the fact that the Jonathan Administration has continued in its profligate ways even as students caught in the web of the strike remained at home when they should be engaged in serious academic work.
APC said since the strike started, the Jonathan Administration has thrown at least two mega, money-guzzling dinners in Abuja, perhaps the best example of the aphorism ‘Nero fiddling while Rome burns’. In one of such frivolities, the President and his party folks feasted joyously at a post-PDP convention dinner even as hapless students were bemoaning their fate over the strike.
The party said it was also in the midst of the strike that the First Lady organized the so-called peace rally that brought hundreds of unsuspecting women to Abuja in what later turned out to be a march of shame. The Abuja gathering must have guzzled millions of naira.
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| Protesting National Association of Nigerian Students (Nans), Zone B South-South/South-East led by Cordinator, Comrade Chinonso Obasi, barricaded the Benin-Asaba expressway by head bridge, Onitsha over the prolonged Academic Staff Union of Universities, Asuu, strike, recently. Photos: Nath Onojake |
”It is particularly shocking that the government has carried on as if everything is normal, without bothering about the fate of the students who have been marooned at home since the strike started.
Perhaps this is because the children and wards of those at the helm of affairs are luxuriating in schools abroad, or because they are too comfortable to worry about their less-fortunate compatriots,” it said.
APC also said the fact that the strike has persisted despite President Goodluck Jonathan’s directive, widely reported by the media, to the FG’s negotiating team to do everything possible to end the strike, says a lot about the Administration’s credibility.
”In fact, the negotiations between ASUU and the Federal Government were called off two days after the President issued his directive. So much for credibility!” the party said.
APC reiterated its earlier call on the FG,to immediately implement the agreement it willingly reached with ASUU in 2009 and stop wasting its energy on why the agreement cannot be implemented, saying: ”Agreements are meant to be respected, not repudiated.” Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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How far are we supposed to have gone if Buhari Babangida, Abacha and their likes did not truncate our democracy. Expecting GEJ to turn around the ruins in 2 years with frankiste monster boko haram created by the northern elites. We need to appreciate one thing. Failure is not cataclysmic but the result of many failings. This is Nigeria's case. Success will also be a result of very many little successes and GEJ is recording those. We should criticize more constructively ASUU's demand is outrageous given our budgetary realities and they should shift grounds. In 2009 this administration was no in place. ASUU should know that Nigeria must not be shut down because of a subset in the education sector. Emeka Udeagu
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