A former Attorney-General (AG) of Imo, Chukwuma Ma-Chukwu Ume, SAN, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the 36 state governors to expedite actions and bring an end to the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Ume, in a 12-page letter dated June 7 and copies made available to newsmen on Tuesday, urged the Federal Government to immediately address the protracted industrial action.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the lawyer, who addressed the letter to the Federal Government, also copied the National Assembly, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation(SGF), the Minister of Education, and his Labour counterpart and other stakeholders.
He lamented that the perennial ASUU strike is making a caricature of its future leaders.
According to him, if we shy away from this, generations will ask if we were not there and what did we do?
“By Chapter 4, Clause 4.1 of the January 2009 Agreement between ASUU and Federal Government of Nigeria, the government set aside the total sum of N1.5 trillion to be paid in three trenches spread across three years (2009, 2010 and 2011).
“Government has however maintained that it can’t raise that sum,” he said.
Ume said to solve the problem head-on, there was the need to reintroduce the 2009 National Interest Education Bill drafted by the Victims of Persecution.
The Victims of Prosecution, a nonprofit organisation, had in 2009, drafted a National Interest Education Bill, which mandates that any person wishing to assume political office in Nigeria must ensure that their children and spouses would not be attending any foreign academic Institution and would do so as long as he remains in office.
Ume, who is also the raportuer of the organisation, explained that the bill was to essentially save the educational system, engender patriotism for the country and enthrone a nation the children would be proud of.