TheCable

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to address issues raised by the union.

On Monday, Buhari had asked ASUU to reconsider its stance on its ongoing strike and resume work.

But Gbolahan Bolarin, chairman of ASUU, Federal University of Minna, accused the president of playing psychological games by talking about the plight of students who are being affected.

Bolarin, in a statement on Tuesday, said Buhari was “very vocal” about the ASUU struggle before he became president, and that one would have thought the president would understand the struggle of the union.

“Firstly, Mr President was very vocal about the ASUU struggle some years back before becoming the President and one would have expected him to know about the struggle more than some people, but unfortunately, his statement yesterday suggested otherwise,” The Punch quoted him as saying.

“I won’t blame the president that much. I can only say that his handlers are his enemies because if the president was properly briefed about the matter, he wouldn’t have made that statement.

“Again, the president said ‘enough is enough’. What is actually enough? Was he talking about the attitude of his appointees to direct order, as evident in the directive he gave on February 1, 2022, and was not executed for over two months? Was he tired of going through reports on assignments given to different agencies? These are more of his faults and not that of the union.

“The president was trying so hard to play a psychological game by bringing students into the statement, forgetting that the lecturers like any other common Nigerian, have their kids and wards in public universities but his kids were never in public universities.

“Unfortunately, the government, after six months of keeping the students at home due to its poor handling of the strike issues, is just realising that they are parents when their children do not even know what the gates of public universities in the country look like.

“There is no need to paint ASUU’s struggle in such coloration because we all know that the political class hardly cares about the rest of us because they only believe the students are good for political thuggery.

“I was so happy when the president mentioned that we should be inclined toward technology. The question again that we need to ask is this: Do we have the facilities to make us an innovative nation through our universities?

“Is the upgrade of facilities in our universities to make us competitive not part of ASUU’s demands? Then, I think enough is enough of daydreaming.

“We have been on strike for close to six months and you have not been able to resolve just one of the issues and you want us to go back to classes so as to declare another strike in the next three months?”

The union also asked the president to take a decisive step and proffer lasting solution to the issues tabled before it.