The spokesperson for the Presidential Campaign Council of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Festus Keyamo, has stated that ASUU is on strike due to the 2009 agreement signed by the Peoples Democratic Party-led government.
Keyamo disclosed this during an interview on Trust TV’s Daily Politics on Monday.
He added that between 1999 and 2015 when the PDP handed over to the ruling APC, ASUU was on strike 12 times, amounting to 900 days.
“The ASUU thing you are talking about. What is the problem of ASUU now? It’s the 2009 agreement signed by the PDP government. They signed agreements with ASUU that they couldn’t fulfil. We had to inherit those agreements and now struggling to renegotiate those agreements.
“Imagine how irresponsible a government can be when they went into agreements with ASUU and signed conditions that they couldn’t fulfil, and that is why ASUU is on strike, so let us tell Nigerians that ASUU is not on strike because APC signed an agreement with them. It was the PDP that signed the agreement.
“We are not shifting blame; we are going to tackle the problem. Between 1999 and 2015 when they handed over to the APC, ASUU was on strike 12 times. I have the statistics amounting to 900 days.”
But in response, the spokesperson for the PDP presidential campaign, Daniel Bwala, who appeared on Trust TV alongside Keyamo, said that during the PDP government, when ASUU or any of the labour unions were on strike, there were constructive engagements between the parties.
He said, “Ask Adams Oshimole who was the Lord Lugard of labour unionism of that time. He was very blunt, strong, and consistent in that regard. During all the periods when they were on strike, whether by ASUU or any of the labour unions around the time of the PDP, there was constructive engagement, which means all parties were honest and realistic. The argument ASUU is making on all occasions when they were on strik,e this present government shift the goal post.”
