ASUU Strike: FG Gives Latest Update

The federal government has assured Nigerians that the ongoing ASUU strike will be coming to an end soon.

The Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige said this while addressing the resumed meeting with the Union on Tuesday, February 22.

He said that he was quite shocked when ASUU went back on its assurance it gave through the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council, NIREC, led by the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar and the Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Rev. Supo Ayokunle.

According to him: “I sincerely thought ASUU and the Ministry of Education would have resolved the issues, which hopefully are not major areas of dispute, warranting industrial action. To my surprise, I came back, and the strike is still on. Be that as it may, it is the mandate of my Ministry to apprehend industrial disputes wherever they occur and we have apprehended this.

“It is my mandate to apprehend industrial disputes and this has been apprehended so we can discuss, and later expand to what is called tripartite plus meeting, involving members of NIREC who are top religious and traditional rulers, we cannot push aside. And that is as soon as we are done and agree on issues here.

“It should not be one month strike. In fact, there is nothing like one month strike or warning strike in labour parlance. A strike is a strike. We want this to end as soon as possible, as we sort out all grey areas in the agreement as the ILO Principles at Work allows for renegotiation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. So we go back to the draft agreement. We must avoid another situation where our children bear the brunt of two elephants fighting.”