By Daniel Ayantoye
Following the meeting between the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the federal government, which met a brick wall, the Kwara State Chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress, has warned against another non-productive agreement.
Speaking in an interview with Pilot Education at the weekend, the Kwara State NLC Chairman, Comrade Yekeen Agunbiade, who chided the federal government for allowing the issue to lead to strike before addressing it, stated that a situation where another agreement will be reached without implementation should not be allowed.
“It is wrong for the federal government to make an agreement with the relevant body in the academic sector like ASUU and not implement it. The FG must step up their game and treat the agreement accordingly.
“Implementing policy has always been an issue in governance. To a great extent, government should know that such agreement with ASUU when implemented has a lot to do with the stability of the system for greater development,” he added.
Meanwhile, at the University of Ilorin, academic activities were in top gear even as some departments were noticed writing examination.
Some students who spoke to this medium expressed their delight that the local chapter of ASUU did not join the industrial action.
A 400 level student of the department of Law, Adekunbi Ademola said, “Academic activities are going on as usual. For me, I have finished my exams for this semester but we still have others that just concluded today (Friday).”
Also, a Statistics final year student, Muhammed Basheer said, “I am currently doing my defense and so far the strike has not affected us in any way.”
In the same vein a 300 level Linguistic student, Sanni Fatimah said, “It is most beneficial to the students that we are not partaking in the strike action. When we got admission, we had a clue of when we will graduate and that is the hallmark.”
Meanwhile, an associate professor at Bowen University Dr. Samuel Akinola who spoke with our reporter stated that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ASUU and FG is targeted at upgrading the nation’s education sector to world class standard.
ASUU and the federal government had in a meeting held recently reached a non-conclusive position on some issues that resulted to the former not calling off the strike that commenced last Monday.
