•As FG reconstitutes team to renegotiate 2009 agreements
•Govt deliberately undermining education, says don
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, demanded immediate resignation of the Minister for Education, Adamu Adamu, over incessant strikes embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
It also asked the minister to tender an unreserved apology to the nation for walking out on the leadership of National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), who went to his office to request his intervention to end the ongoing strike in the nation’s public universities.
In a statement issued by its National publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, the PDP insisted that Adamu’s action was an assault and embarrassment to the nation’s education sector
“By insulting and refusing to receive members of NANS, Adamu abdicated his duties and exhibited an unpardonable discourteousness unfitting of a minister of Nigeria, let alone a minister of education.
“His action amounted to spitting in the face of the Nigerian youths and their parents, a conduct that is characteristic of the impunity, insensitivity and arrogant disdain for Nigerians, which have permeated the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration,” the statement reads.
BESIDES, the students’ wing of the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has demanded Adamu’s immediate resignation over his failure to end the current ASUU strike.
The group also vowed to collaborate with NANS on its planned National Day of Action to shutdown the country over the incessant strikes in the country’s tertiary institutions of learning.
Speaking at a media briefing in Katsina state, National Coordinator of CNG, Comrade Jamilu Charanchi, chided the Federal Government over its nonchalant attitude towards ending the strike.
Charanchi lamented that the Federal Government was not bothered that the future of Nigerian students was being played with as result of the incessant industrial actions.
He, therefore, warned that government’s failure to urgently address the situation would force the students wing of CNG to work with NANS and shutdown the country on its National Day of Action.
However, following the development, the Federal Government has reconstituted a team to renegotiate the 2009 agreements with ASUU.
A statement issued by the Director of Press, Federal Ministry of Education, Ben Bem Goong, said the new renegotiation team will be headed by Pro-Chancellor, Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike Ikwo, Prof. Emeritus Nimi Briggs.
Members of the reconstituted 2009 FGN/University-Based Unions Agreements Re-negotiation Team are, Pro-Chancellor, Federal University, Wukari Lawrence Patrick Ngbale (North East); Pro-Chancellor, Federal University, Birnin Kebbi, Prof. Funmi Togunu-Bickersteth (South West); Pro-Chancellor, Federal University, Lokoja, Chris Adighije (South East), among others from the geopolitical zones of the country.
MEANWHILE, immediate past Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academics), University of Port Harcourt, Prof. Hakeem Fawehinmi has described the crisis in the country’s universities over ASUU’s industrial action as “a deliberate government effort to undermined education.
Speaking with The Guardian in Abuja on the incessant strikes embarked upon by ASUU, Fawehinmi maintained that the strike was necessity if only to make the Federal Government come to terms with the realities of the country’s tertiary education.
