APC Slams FG Over Continuing ASUU Strike

The All Progressives Congress, APC, has
condemned the Federal Government’s insincere
and amateurish handling of the strike that has
paralyzed academic work in public universities
in the country for the third month running.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday
by its Interim National Publicity Secretary,
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the tepid
and half-hearted way the government has
handled the strike has shown that it does not
place much premium on education, which is
the path to national development.
It said there is no better indication of the
government’s disdain for education than the
fact that the Jonathan Administration has
continued in its profligate ways even as
students caught in the web of the strike
remained at home when they should be
engaged in serious academic work.
APC said since the strike started, the Jonathan
administration has thrown at least two mega,
money-guzzling dinners in Abuja, perhaps the
best example of the aphorism ‘Nero fiddles
while Rome burns’.
“In one of such frivolities, the President and
his party folks feasted joyously at a post-PDP
convention dinner even as hapless students
were bemoaning their fate over the strike.”
The party said it was also in the midst of the
strike that the First Lady organized the so-
called peace rally that brought hundreds of
unsuspecting women to Abuja in what later
turned out to be a march of shame. The Abuja
gathering must have guzzled millions of naira.
“Yet, some ministers had the temerity to insult
the sensibilities of Nigerians by saying the
government will shut down if it meets ASUU’s
demand. What an affront! They did not say
Nigeria will shut down when the country paid
out 3 trillion naira in non-existent fuel
subsidies; they did not say Nigeria will shut
down over the 1 trillion spent in the last eight
years on less than 500 people; they did not say
Nigeria will shut down due to FG’s monumental
profligacy, which includes spending billions of
naira to pamper ex-militants, some of whom
are now so overfed that they are threatening
the country’s very existence!
“It is particularly shocking that the
government has carried on as if everything is
normal, without bothering about the fate of
the students who have been marooned at
home since the strike started. Perhaps this is
because the children and wards of those at the
helm of affairs are luxuriating in schools
abroad, or because they are too comfortable
to worry about their less-fortunate
compatriots,’’ it said.
APC also said the fact that the strike has
persisted despite President Goodluck Jonathan’s
directive, widely reported by the media, to the
FG’s negotiating team to do everything possible
to end the strike, says a lot about the
administration’s credibility.
“In fact, the negotiations between ASUU and
the Federal Government were called off two
days after the President issued his directive. So
much for credibility!’’ the party said.
APC reiterated its earlier call on the FG, in a
statement it issued on 20 August, to
immediately implement the agreement it
willingly reached with ASUU in 2009 and stop
wasting its energy on why the agreement
cannot be implemented, saying: “Agreements
are meant to be respected, not repudiated.’’