Update On ASUU strike: Federal Goverment covering up facts with government power, says IMSU Don

The Federal Government has been accused of using government power and media blitz to cover up a lot of facts on the issue of university education funding, for which its academic staff, ASUU have been on strike for over three months.

Val Obinna, a French Language professor at the Department of French, Faculty of Humanities, Imo State University (IMSU), Owerri, said that the Federal Government has been sponsoring student groups, and market women against the ASUU; thereby presenting a public picture that the university lecturers were simply wicked and unpatriotic.

He said ASUU went on strike as a last resort, after several attempts to get the Federal Government to honour its own side of the 2009 FGN – ASUU agreement; adding that, the university system in the country has been so neglected that, only an urgent intervention would address it.

“The Federal Government having failed to get the agreement implemented, ASUU members thought the only way they can enter into action, and make the world realise what they are talking about, is to go on strike.

“The strike came after so many reminders, and so many warnings to the Federal Government. Not even the 2012 review of the 2009 agreement could be honoured by the Federal Government.

“Having exhausted all avenues, when ASUU decided to now go on strike; that was when Government woke up; and is now using government power to try to muzzle ASUU, and using its state media to tell the world that ASUU are wicked and unpatriotic,” Obinna stated.

According to him, ASUU members do not like strike; nor are they interested in using strike actions to get things done. But when they are pushed beyond their endurance capacity, they go on strike as a last resort.

“I do not think anybody should blame us. And it should not be only when we go on strike that people should get interested. When we are shouting and talking before the strike, people should be interested, and try to hear us,” Obinna said.

He stated that ASUU were not stubborn, as they are now being portrayed; but they only want the Federal Government to reason with them, saying that if the government had been making the little changes each year in the university system, they would make a difference overall.

He posited that the effect of the strike is on everybody: “Our children are here in the country, we don’t have them in private universities like some other politicians do. We cannot also allow our children, and the children of other members of the society who cannot afford the high school fees in private universities or study abroad to suffer poor educational training.

“Currently, we are not enjoying our jobs, and we can’t afford to keep ‘managing’ according to Nigerian language; ‘just take it the way it is.’ No, we have had enough of the mess.

“It is a shame that no Nigerian university has featured among the first 1,000 universities in the world. For us in IMSU, the situation is even more pathetic, as the institution cannot be classified among the top 10 universities in the Nigeria, let alone Africa. So, it is not a matter of strike. The system is suffering, everybody is suffering it. We cannot allow things to continue that way,” the French Professor lamented.

He advised the Federal Government to be democratic about the issue of university education funding, stressing that as key stakeholders, they (ASUU) do not want to continue to witness all the abysmal state of things in the system.