By Ismail Auwal
The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, has urged Nigerian parents to persuade the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to call off its ongoing strike.
Keyamo on Channels Television programme, ‘Politics Today’ on Friday noted that the government had done its best.
“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 cannot 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 cannot ground to a halt because we want to take care of the demands of ASUU,” he added.
ASUU has been on strike since February this year, demanding the withdrawal of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel information system, IPPIS, and adoption of the University, Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS. They equally seek the University Peculiar Payroll and Payment System, U3PS or UPPPS for the non-academic unions, among others.
Nigerian parents whose children have been at home for about 170 days, have appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to end the strike.
Since then, the federal government and ASUU have failed to reconcile, therefore leaving the Nigerian youths to wander about.
