Presidential lamentation not adequate to solve public universities challenges, ASUU replies Buhari

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has declared that the recent belated lamentation by President Muhammadu Buhari not enough to resolve issues that led to the ongoing strike by the union.

Recall that the President, who received some governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC), legislators and political leaders at his residence, on Monday, had said to ASUU ‘Enough is Enough’.

However, in a reaction to the President’s lamentation, Comrade Adelaja Odukoya,  Zonal Coordinator,  ASUU-Lagos, Zone described the outpouring by the President as comical and laughable, saying had the President acted earlier the strike would not have lingered to date.

The union said all the issues raised by ASUU were not new, saying, “The fact that the president that unfortunately and sadly taken and embraced an attitude of mute indifference and unedifying quietude in the face of calamitous consequences a neglected education sector could foist on generations of Nigerians, including those yet unborn is a clear signpost of leadership failure”.

Odukoya added, “The choice of this solemn occasion to trade blames rather than making a sacrifice as the season demands appear more of gross lack of understanding of the enormity of the crisis.

“The usual window-dressing and buck-passing and inability to rise to serious occasions affecting our country particularly the nation’s education sector is rather unfortunate.

“This is underscored by the sleep-walk disposition of the un-presidential response to an issue which has been prolonged and exacerbated due to presidential inaction.

Mr. President Sir, for ASUU this strike action should not have lasted beyond the first week after it was  declared because the issues at stake were neither new nor do they require rocket science to resolve  given that there had been MOUs and MOAs as well as a duly renegotiated ASUU-FGN Agreement  completed way back 13th May 2020 before your government which you and your administration neglected and refused to implement and signed,” he stated.

The Coordinator,  ASUU-Lagos, Zone regretted that the latter-day unconvincing lamentation by the President without doing anything was unnecessary.

“Your Excellency, …The various issues confronting our nation, that of the ongoing strike in the nation’s public universities will not be solved by presidential lamentations but by executive actions induced by rare patriotism and nationalism,” Odukoya added.