As the federal government of Nigeria struggles to find a solution to the protracted strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), former education minister, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, has said that the crisis is now beyond the government and the union as the parties can no longer handle the situation.
Dr Ezekwesili said Nigerians
must now demand that there be a another approach to arriving at the kind of the
university system to be run in the country. Speaking to newsmen yesterday
in Abuja, at the Unity Schools Old Students’ Association (USOSA) One-Day
Summit/Dialogue on Education,
Good Governance and National Unity, the former
minister said “there is no time because the rest of the world has used
knowledge as a basis to completely leave us at the lower ranks of economic
development.”
She said: “The two parties so far seem to have
failed to have a principled negotiation. This is no longer a matter
between the government and ASUU; this has become a matter between the people of
Nigeria, government and ASUU.
“I think the citizens must now
demand that there be a neutral approach at identifying what will be the
solution to the kind of university system that we want to run.”
The former vice president
of the World Bank said the ASUU agreement was not signed during her tenure as
education minister.
According to her, “When I was
the minister of education, I personally got Mr Gamaliel Onosode, a
distinguished professional, to lead the negotiation, but what subsequently
happened after I left office in 2007 is open to interpretation of those who
were part of the final negotiation that was said to have been signed in 2009.
“And one thing that I do know
is that there are many points of convergence between the federal government and
ASUU at the time in 2007 when I was leaving to Washington DC to resume my
position as the vice president of World Bank”.
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