Adamu Adamu, the minister of education, claimed on Tuesday that the protracted strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities had put him through a dark period of personal suffering and internal strife. This was discussed during the Tuesday National Universities Commission meeting in Abuja with vice-chancellors and pro-chancellors of federal universities.
He said the past two weeks have been a really dark time of inner conflict and psychological sorrow for him. He added that he used to fool himself into thinking that he could terminate the ongoing strikes in the education sector if there was an atmosphere of candor and goodwill. This hasn’t proven to be possible as he had once believed.
According to reports, the ASUU president declared that the union would no longer engage in negotiations with the present federal administration. He said this viewpoint ought to be rejected. The government and ASUU are compelled to continue their discussions until our universities have once again welcomed students, who are undoubtedly the strikes’ primary victims. Due to the current situation, all university councils and senates are urged to assume their respective roles.
He stated that to return public colleges to where they were in the 1960s and 1970s, everyone must keep working together. Vice-Chancellors and Pro-Chancellors, who hold the top positions in our system of universities, need to show more dedication to ending the ongoing strike. The government will keep funding the academic and physical expansion of its universities.
The government will keep making relatively good improvements to the working conditions for all university employees, teaching and non-teaching alike. ASUU had gone on strike on Monday, February 14, 2022, as a result of what the union claimed was the government’s refusal to satisfy its demands.
