
SIR: The tertiary education sector is sitting on a ticking time bomb. The federal government as of yesterday, Thursday October 29 is yet to honour its Memorandum of Understanding signed with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
I do not believe that the federal government wants ASUU to go on another strike. But if the situation extends beyond the October 31 deadline, then ASUU will very likely go on strike again.
The President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, had, while announcing the conditional suspension of the strike, gave the Federal Government until the end of October to fulfil its promises.
We don’t want another strike, however short it may be. The universities and the students are yet to recover from the last one. Exams that should have long been concluded are only being rounded up now. Subsequent holidays that are supposed to follow have been shortened. The academic calendar has been disrupted. We can’t afford to have further disruption of our academic calendar. It’s already one disruption, too many.
Lord knows how many Nigerian students had accidents and others that died on our bad roads when traveling to and from school at the commencement and cancellation of the last ASUU strike. We can’t afford to risk the lives of these students again.
The federal government has to find a way to institutionalize swift response mechanism to prevent ASUU from going on strike in future. I beseech the federal government to do the needful and avert this impending calamity.
Mr Hillz
Lagos!