•Says blackmail, forceful reopening of schools not solution
BY JAMES AKINOLA
Archbishop of Province of Enugu Anglican Communion, Emmanuel Chukwuma, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to end the lingering Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike by personally engaging leadership of the union in a dialogue.
He urged Buhari to emulate his predecessor, former president Goodluck Jonathan, who used personal contact with the leadership of ASUU to solve a four-month strike during his reign.
Reacting to reports in the media that government was planning to use it schedule meeting with pro-chancellors and vice chancellors on Tuesday, September 6, to direct “forceful” reopening of the universities without resolving with ASUU, the archbishop warned that it would make the matter worse.
He told our correspondent yesterday, in Enugu that, “as far as I am concerned, it depends on the approach, even right now, they are calling a meeting of pro-chancellors, vice chancellors. It depends on what they want to do. But it will be fair enough for the president to call ASUU, sit down with them and see what they can do. But to begin to blackmail or probably try to negotiate for schools to open at their back, it will not work.
“It is not the best option to say they will start opening schools. It is not only salaries, there is also infrastructure development that ASUU is talking about. Most of the universities cannot even do research, most of the universities cannot even teach in an environment that is conducive, most of the hostels are dilapidated and these do not enhance learning.”
Recalling former president Jonathan’s account of how he solved ASUU strike, Chukwuma said: “The president should please take that system of former president Jonathan, give audience to ASUU, they will respect him, but for him to play nonchalant attitude as if they are nobody, he is delaying things.
“The president should have time with ASUU, he had given two weeks ultimatum to the minister of education and he did nothing, he did not succeed. The onus is now on the head, so he should do something if he values education.
“He should do something like his predecessor Jonathan did, call these people to order, discuss with them, have dialogue with them and then, pacify them, that is what I think he should do.”
He asked the government to set up committee to go round the universities to ascertain the position of the infrastructure before the schools’ reopening, adding that many things must have gone wrong since the past six months ASUU was on strike.
Chukwuma pleaded to both ASUU and government to consider the students and their parents, stressing, “I think there should be proper understanding between the ASUU people and government, and the students also should be taken into consideration. ASUU should try to see what they can do, whether they can harmonise everything to make sure frustrated students outside can go back to school.”
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