The Federal Government says it’s cash-strapped and can’t meet the financial demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Recall that federal government owned universities lecturers have been on strike since Monday, February 14, 2022.
The strike, according to the union, was as a result of the failure of the government to meet some demands such as the release of the revitalisation funds for universities, release of earned allowances for university lecturers, deployment of the University Transparency Accountability System for the payment of salaries and allowances of university lecturers, renegotiation of the ASUU-Federal Government 2009 agreement among others.
Speaking on the issue, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, SAN, has called on Nigerian parents and guardians whose children are affected by the ongoing shutdown of academic activities in government-owned universities to appeal ASUU to to call
Keyamo made the call when he featured on a programme on Channels Television.
Keyamo noted that the government had done its best and appealed to parents to “beg” ASUU.
“The moment they went on strike, we intervened, what is the manner again beyond that ? Even before the strike began, we called them to a meeting, what manner is more than that? It’s not like we left them to go on strike first and we were sleeping, as the talk started, they still went on strike.
“You can not allow one sector of the economy to hold you down and then blackmail you to go and borrow N1.2 trillion and our total income is around N6.1 trillion and we have roads to build, health centres and other sectors to take care of.
“I will tell the parents, everybody to go and beg ASUU like the President said the other time, those who know them should appeal to their sense of patriotism. The nation can not ground to a halt because we want to take care of the demands of ASUU”.