Stop Blackmailing ASUU, Civil Rights Group warns Federal Government

Posted by African Examiner Ayo Balogun, Featured, Latest Headlines, News Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013

Ayo Balogun, Lagos

The Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria (CRCN) has warned the Federal Government to stop blackmailing the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over the ongoing strike by the union, while berating the government for not acceding to the demands of the lecturers.

Minister of Finance Dr Okonjo Iweala

President, CRCN, Shehu Sani in a Facebook message described the ongoing strike by the lecturers as a patriotic act of resistance against bad and visionless leadership in the country as well as a genuine struggle to save the education sector from total collapse.

“Those oppose to the strike are reactionaries and running dogs of the political establishment. There is no other way for the University teachers to press home their demands and pressurize the federal government to keep to its promises than through strikes.

“The Federal Government should meet up the demands of the teachers and end the resort to blackmail. It is ironic that some Nigerians have the guts to protest against ASUU strike but failed to protest against the FG when it reneges on all agreements it enters with ASUU,” he said.

Sani lamented the nation’s leaders Indifference to the state of education, saying this stemmed from the fact that most of their children study in expensive schools abroad as successive governments in Nigeria had destroyed the tertiary education by chronic underfunding, systematic neglect and deliberate lack of emphasis.

He added that most of the nation’s leaders leaders attended public schools and that public schools had today become public nuisance and public shame as Nigerian public universities were now dysfunctional bakeries for churning out half baked graduates while the Nigerian private universities had become outpost mills for massive production of fraudulent first class graduates.

“University teachers have the right to strike and to struggle for their rights and cannot be stopped by the hired agents of the state or those ignorant of the imperative of sacrifice. ASUU strike is a salvation mission to rescue our tertiary education. When ASUU was in the trenches fighting military dictatorships and fighting to restore democracy back to our country, most of those opposed to its strike today had no courage to speak out,” he stated.