ASUU was Hasty and Impatient- Rev. Samson Ayokunle
The President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev. Samson Ayokunle, has criticised the Academic Staff Union of Universities and the Federal Government over the ongoing strike by lecturers across universities in the country.
According to him, ASUU was impatient and disrespectful to him and the Sultan of Sokoto in person Alhaji Saad Abubakar, by forging ahead with the strike despite dabbling into the matter. He stressed that the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council, which they both chair, would have allowed ASUU to continue but for the future of the affected students they had to intercede.
The CAN chairman said this during the first quarter meeting of the council themed “Education for peace and nation building” in Abuja on Monday.
In his words: “For me, I am not pleased with ASUU because they were impatient. I am the co-chairman and others went to meet with them (ASUU), instead of them to be patient with us to know how to get the government to commit itself, they went ahead with the strike again while our intervention was going on.
“ I find that really disrespectful and that was the reason we left them, but for how long shall we continue to allow the deadlock between ASUU and the government to continue?
“Our children are the ones suffering from this, and the future of the children God has given to us. How can they be playing with the future of these children like this?”
“I think the government also does not allow us to believe that they don’t have the money. It was at that time when they were saying there is no money for ASUU that the government went and donated $1m to Afghanistan. How reasonable is that? When you have your own Afghanistan at home, you have not taken care of it, you are donating to another one.
“We need to take a drastic decision about this stalement between ASUU and the Federal Government which is prolonging for months now without any resolve.”
In response to what NIREC said, The union’s National President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, revealed in an interview that.
NIREC withdrew from negotiations the moment the strike commence, should they have done so? In his words: “We accorded them enough respect last year when they pleaded with us not to go on strike. We did not get angry because nothing was done despite all the moves for negotiations.
“The comments about we disregarding their advice is not necessary because we respected them and followed their advice and did not embark on any form of strike in 2021. However when we saw that nothing was done, we did the needful by striking. So what is the wrong in that?”.
