Monday 21 October 2013

ASUU STRIKE: Worried parents want ASUU to make demands public



Worried by the lingering
Academic Staff Union of
Universities (ASUU)
strike, parents have
asked the union leaders
to make their demands public. “Nigerians need to know the rationale for the
protracted strike. We need to know what they
are fighting for,’’ some parents demanded in
separate interviews with the News Agency of
Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Abuja. A parent, Mr Isaac Adua, argued that people had
been left in the dark as to the motive behind
“leaving the children to rot at home.” Adua, a civil servant, who said that his two boys
had been at home, said the striking lecturers
“should make parents and stakeholders
understand their demands, know which of
them had been met by government and table
the outstanding issues in the court of public opinion. “This is necessary so that we can decide if they
have reasons strong enough to warrant the
continuation of their action’’. Adua said that until ASUU cleared itself, “they
should shun whatever sinister motives they
have and return to classes’’. He alleged that the strike was losing its
substance and destroying the very foundation
it claimed it was trying to correct. Another parent, Mr Dadi Maxwell, urged ASUU
to consider the future of the students and
return to work. Maxwell, a bank executive, told NAN that it was
good for ASUU to make its demands public so
that Nigerians would also assist the union in its
case. “It is also good for them to tell us what the
Federal Government has so far conceded to
them and what is left,’’ he said. Another parent, Hajiya Larai Yuguda, a business
woman, said that she had had no peace of mind
since her daughter returned home and had
been doing nothing. “I fear for her safety and future and I know
every parent caught in this war by ASUU
understands the situation. “Let ASUU take a bow when the ovation is still
at its loudest because there is no telling what
may happen in the nearest future if they
remained adamant,’’she said. She pleaded with the striking lecturers to
consider the plight of parents and students and
call off the strike. NAN reports that the strike, embarked upon
more than three months ago, has crippled the
university system with many groups staging
demonstrations and calling for an end to it. The latest protests came from the Coalition of
Civil Society Organisations, market women, the
National Association of Nigeria Students,
Eduwatch Consult, an education interest group,
among others.

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