A Nigerian activist and presidential aspirant, Omoyele Sowore, has weighed in on the industrial action embarked on by Academic Staff Union of Universities which has crippled education in public tertiary institutions in the country.
WITHIN NIGERIA has reported that ASUU announced on Monday that its ongoing strike had been extended by 12 weeks.
A statement signed by ASUU’s president, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, said the extension was to give the Federal Government enough time to satisfactorily resolve all the outstanding issues.
Reacting to the announcement on Monday, Sowore admonished the affected students to express their exasperation by embarking on mass action that will directly affect the government.
Sowore issued the admonition on Monday via his Twitter handle.
He said the mass action will teach callous political rulers hard lessons.
“Nigerian youths/students must teach these inhuman political rulers playing Russian roulette with their future a BIG lesson.
“Let the organising start now, shut down everything with mass action, stop everything until our higher institutions are well funded #WeCantContinueLikeThis.
“They’re doing this because their kids don’t attend Nigerian universities! #Revolutionnow!,” he wrote.
Prior to Monday’s announcement, ASUU had been on strike for 11 weeks. A one-month warning strike was announced on February 14, and it was thereafter extended by eight weeks in March.
According to the union, the strike was due to the Federal Government’s failure to implement an agreement between both parties, signed in 2009.
It had also accused the Federal Government of working against the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution, a payment platform designed by the union in place of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System by the Federal Government.
The union, therefore, demanded the release of revitalisation funds for universities, renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement; release of earned allowances for university lecturers; and deployment of the UTAS payment platform for the payment of salaries and allowances of university lecturers.
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