The National President, Parent-Teacher Association of Nigeria, Haruna Danjuma, speaks to GODFREY GEORGE about the lingering industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities which has gone on for almost six months
How would you assess the response from the Federal Government as regards the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities which has made students of public varsities be away from school for nearly six months?
The Federal Government is now beginning to respond in a more pragmatic manner concerning the ASUU strike. The issue of ASUU has raised a lot of reactions that even the Ministry of Labour and Employment had to come in. Now that the President, Muhammadu Buhari, has mandated the Ministry of Education to take over the matter, I think there will be light at the end of the tunnel. We hope that within the two-week ultimatum given to the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, changes will come. We need tangible results as parents and stakeholders in education. Our children need to go back to school. They are tired of just sitting at home, doing nothing. They need to continue their academic exercise.
The ultimatum expired over a week ago. Don’t you think this shows the government’s unwillingness to meet the demands of ASUU?
No. Adamu just came on board . He needs time to make recommendations and will do so soon. He understands education better.
It has been almost six months since the strike began. Is this intervention not belated?
People need to know everybody’s role. It is the role of the government to establish universities and engage the services of lecturers and educators that will teach our children. They also have the responsibility of equipping our universities with adequate equipment so our children can learn properly. I just hope Adamu will take this recent call by the President seriously and play his role to make this strike come to an end. Even though he is not an educationist, he has been an educational administrator long before he assumed office. He used to advocate for quality education in Nigeria. He used to run a column in a Nigerian daily. I do not want to talk about the Minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, who has bastardised this struggle with his words and actions. This has made the amicable settlement of this crisis to be farfetched. Ngige thinks he can do this all by himself. He thinks the issue of handling academics is like other unions in other sectors. What ASUU is asking for is for our own good – revitalising our universities and making sure that all the equipment needed is in place. That is why they asked some stakeholders led by Prof Nimi Briggs to go to the public universities and assess the facilities themselves on the ground. They have done that and they submitted their findings and their recommendations. It is now left for Ngige to take that report and meet with Mr President and explain in detail what to touch, what to do and not to do, but he has not done so till now. This is why the President had to reassign Adamu, who is at the helm of affairs in education ministry, to take over the matter and deliver it in two weeks. It is such a shame! The issues of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System and University Transparency and Accountability Solution, are things that we ought to sit down and talk about and come to an agreement on. As parents, we are surprised that this has taken so long. It is something that an employer and the employee are supposed to sit together and talk about and reason together. With what is happening now, I just hope Adamu will intervene and things will return to normalcy.
