On Tuesday, Femi Falana (SAN), a human rights attorney, urged President Major General Muhammadu Buhari (ret.) to take immediate action to fulfill the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities. Buhari spoke out on the ongoing university professors’ strike on Monday. The strike, which started on February 14, 2022, has caused academic activity at public universities in Nigeria to cease. Buhari warned the lecturers on strike that enough was enough in a statement sent by his spokesman, Garba Shehu.
Falana, however, charged that the government disregarded the union’s initial warning strikes. He said that ASUU started the present strike four months ago to pressure the Federal Government into abiding by the FG/ASSU Agreement on supporting all federal universities in Nigeria. The entire amount of money that the FG was required to contribute to renovate the institutions under the terms of the legally binding Agreement is N200 billion. He also added that the Nigerian people have taken the Federal Government’s assertion that it lacks the financial means to support higher education with a grain of salt as it does seem that the Federal Government has not given higher education a high priority given how and how much public money has been spent on other projects.
“A government that can afford to spend trillions of naira on the aforesaid projects cannot afford to ignore the funding of higher education. Therefore, the federal government should adopt concrete measures to end the ASUU strike without any further delay. Instead of lamenting over the strike,”
Femi Falana
He further stated that the National Assembly, concerned parents, progressive civil society organizations, and other key stakeholders should persuade President Buhari to take the necessary action to immediately put a stop to the strike.
