President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, blamed lecturers for the eight-month long strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
He described as “amazing” the failure of the lecturers to suspend their eight-month strike.
Buhari, in a statement by his media aide, Garba Shehu, said during a security meeting with the 36 governors in Abuja that lecturers have failed to consider the larger challenges facing the country, which has resulted in the prolonged strike.
The President said the government on its part conceded something but lecturers have refused to be considerate.
“Government conceded something. The problem is that they refused to look at the problem of the whole country. The Minister of Labour is working hard at it.
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“It is amazing how ASUU will stay out of classrooms for so long. There’s a need for our elites to understand the challenges facing the country,” Buhari added.
ASUU has been on strike since March 2020 over demands for more funding for public universities and renegotiation of the 2009 FG/ASUU agreement.
Others are outstanding earned academic allowances, the proliferation of universities by state governments and the constitution of Visitation Panels to Federal Universities.
ASUU also opposed the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System used in settling workers salaries by the FG and instead, developed the University Transparency and Accountability Solution which is currently undergoing test-run by the National Information Technology Development Agency.
The Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities and the Non-Academic Staff Union had also proposed the University General and Peculiar Personnel and Payroll System in place of the IPPIS.
The government said it had agreed to pay N40 billion Earned Academic Allowance, N30billion for the revitalisation of the education sector, and the arrears of salaries to the university teachers, adding that the only outstanding issue was the disagreement over the payment platform.
But ASUU said it is consulting with its members on the next line of action.
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