The eight monthly strikes by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, did not just amount to total waste, as some lessons were learned from it, parents under the aegis of the National Parent Teacher Association of Nigeria, NAPTAN, said.
Speaking in a chat with Sunday Vanguard, the National Treasurer of NAPTAN, Boniface Odeh, also said it would not be appropriate to say ASUU lost out totally in the struggle.
“Part of the lesson is that the Federal Government now knows its failings and what to do in such situations in the future”, Odeh stated. “It is also not that the union did not achieve its aim.
“I think most of their demands are met, though they are to be incorporated in next year’s budget. The only contentious area is the issue of IPPIS”.
On whether it was the ruling of the Court of Appeal that compelled the union to suspend the strike, the NAPTAN official noted that the intervention of President Muhammadu Buhari and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, did.
His words: “The call off didn’t come from the ruling of the court. I don’t think that was majorly responsible, but the intervention of the President and the Speaker was.
“We also advise the government to tread softly in matters like that. ASUU ought to relate with the Minister of Education and the Labour Minister should not be directly relating with ASUU”.
While calling off the strike on Friday, the union through its National President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, regretted that the issues that led to the strike were yet to be satisfactorily addressed.
It named some of the issues as, “funding for revitalization of public universities; Earned Academic Allowances; proliferation of public universities; Visitation Panels/Release of White Papers and University Transparency and Accountability Solution, UTAS, as a broad spectrum software to stop illegality and provide for an alternative payment platform in the university system.”
It, however, appreciated the commendable efforts of the leadership of the House of Representatives and other patriotic Nigerians who waded into the matter.
