The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Wednesday, mocked President Muhammadu Buhari over his enough is enough comment and description of the ongoing five-month-old strike as inimical to future generations of Nigerians.
The union claimed the president’s statement was not only comical but also a clear sign of leadership failure, arguing the federal government had reduced public universities to glorified secondary schools.
In a statement addressed to President Buhari entitled “Mr President Sir: When and Why Enough Cannot Be Enough” signed by ASUU Zonal Coordinator, Lagos, Dr. Adelaja Odukoya, the union taunted the President for waking up from his slumber to the reality that the strike had grounded public universities and taken a toll on parents, students and other stakeholders in the sector.
ASUU accused Buhari’s administration of constantly resorting to window-dressing and buck-passing, saying the inability to rise up to the occasion and resolve issues was affecting the country, particularly the education sector.
“Your Excellency, your position is to be on top of issues and solve national problems, no matter how tough the situation, instead of hopeless lamentation and sermonising.”
ASUU said its ongoing industrial action was occasioned by the insensitivity, nonchalant disposition, ineptitude and indifference to the fate of public university education in the country under his leadership.
The union said other sister unions in the nation’s public university system and unions in other tertiary institutions were on strike for similar reasons, belied and exposed the ridiculous disposition and propaganda to paint ASUU black in the face of the Nigerian public, who have seen through the shenanigans, deliberate, systemic and orchestrated agenda of the present government.
“The fact that the president, unfortunately and sadly, has taken and embraced an attitude of mute indifference and unedifying quietude in the face of calamitous consequences that a neglected education sector could foist on generations of Nigerians, including those yet unborn, is a clear signpost of leadership failure.”
The union said the target of the Buhari government was “to undermine and destroy public university education in unpatriotic obedience to the slavish and destructive command of the neo-liberal high command to which the soul of this administration and her forbears seems to be irrevocably sold.
“Nigerian public university students remain at home while our dear president and his cronies lavish valuable time on partisan party political activities, family egoistic ceremonies, and global junketing, and to have finally woken up to address the issue of the national strike in the nation’s public universities in a season of Eid Adha celebration, season that calls for utmost and supreme sacrifices exemplified by Prophet Ibrahim, should elicit both spiritual and popular condemnation.
“Mr. President sir, for ASUU this strike 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 Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) and Memorandum of Actions (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.
“Our Commander-in-Chief, if only your administration had taken the sacred responsibility for education and the future of the Nigerian youth seriously, this latter-day unconvincing lamentation without doing anything would have been unnecessary…
“Therefore, Mr. President, saying that enough is enough is mere wishful thinking and will not resolve the present decadence in our universities nor stop the present struggle to reposition our public universities. For the record, Mr. President, enough will not be enough in the struggle to reposition public university education in Nigeria under this present administration and beyond as long as the Nigerian public universities are reduced to glorified secondary schools for the production of poor-quality and globally uncompetitive, rejected and unemployable graduates and Nigerian academics remain one of the poorest paid scholars not only in Africa but the world.”
Odukoya reminded the president that enough would not be enough until he takes the necessary steps and acts presidentially by signing the renegotiated agreement, authorising the end to the use of IPPIS, adopting University Transparency and Accountability Solutions (UTAS), and paying outstanding allowances.
