Headlines
50th Day Strike: ASUU is Wicked, Mean, Says FG…No, FG is Callous, Provocative, Says ASUU
The Minister of State for Education, Mr Emeka Nwajiuba, has said striking university workers including the Academic Staff Union of Universities, the Joint Action Committee of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities and the Non-Academic Staff Union of Education and Associated Institutions are mean and wicked for shutting down universities across the country.
This is just as the ASUU’s strike enters its 50th day today.
The unions are currently on strike over failure by the Federal Government to honour the various agreements reached with them.
The minister said, “We are negotiating with the Polytechnics and Colleges of Education and the same thing ASUU is asking for is the same thing they are asking for but they are willing to continue working.
“The only place we have a suspension of work is the ASUU, SSANU and NASU on account of things they believe are owed them. We believe every union is entitled to make these requests. The government has agreed with them. Government is only releasing money as they have it.
“The renegotiation committee has always been constituted; the only departure is in the willingness of ASUU, SSANU and NASU to continue working while the same entitlements are on.
“The others have same demands but are willing to continue working while they get their entitlements. We have consistently said if you disrupt academic programmes because of one entitlement you are supposed to get, you will eventually get the entitlement but our children would have lost the time they are supposed to learn, you are just being mean. There is no point disrupting everybody’s life, those people can’t regain their lives but you can regain yours, because you haven’t gotten it everybody else must lose something.
“The strike has not produced the money they are asking for, if the money was there they would have been paid the day they started the strike.
“Government has heard them, they are not wrong but the same way government has said they will get the money, for every strike they have embarked on they still get their money but human beings have lost times.
They are not only being wicked to the government but they are wicked to the human beings that constitute Nigeria.”
In his reaction, the National President, ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, wondered why the Federal Government had refused to meet the union’s demand.
“I will not honour people like Nwajiuba with my response. If the government wants the children of the ordinary Nigerian people to have good education like their children who are schooling abroad, they would have resolved the problem within one week.
“Ask Nwajiuba why the Ministry of Education has refused to meet with the ASUU?”
Also, ASUU chairman, University of Lagos, Dr Dele Ashiru, described Nwajiuba’s statement as callous and provocative.
“This is the kind of reaction you get from those who became ministers of the Federal Republic based on quota system. If the minister knows that ASUU would eventually get what it wants why wait until the system is shut down?
“Is it sane for the conditions of service of a worker to remain the same in the last 12 years? The remark by the minister is therefore, to say the least, provocative, callous and insensate.
“As for ASUP and COEASU, if they are comfortable with empty promises from an insensitive ruining elite, good for them.”
Osodeke had earlier told The PUNCH that despite the strike entering its 50th day, the government had not done anything new.
“They have not done anything new, there is no new update as we speak. However, one thing is certain and that is the fact that our ultimatum still stands. The extension of the warning strike will elapse by May 14 after which the NEC will meet on the decision to take,” he said.
Meanwhile, the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination/Direct Entry examinations are set to commence on May 6, 2022 amidst the ongoing strike.
On the impact of the strike on the 2022 admission process, the spokesperson for the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, Fabian Benjamin, said, “It is not the duty of the board to meddle into admissions of institutions. We conduct the examinations and the schools conduct the admissions. However, the strike will have an impact on everything. Even the person who is on strike is feeling the impact.”
The Punch
The first hostages freed from Gaza under a long-awaited ceasefire agreement are back in Israel. The news sparked jubilant scenes in Tel Aviv where large crowds gathered ahead of their release.
The three freed Israeli hostages – the first of 33 to be released over the next six weeks – are Romi Gonen, Doron Steinbrecher and Emily Damari. They are said to be in good health and are receiving treatment at a medical center in Tel Aviv.
In exchange, 90 Palestinian prisoners and detainees are set to be released by Israel from Ofer Prison in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military withdrew from several locations in southern and northern Gaza after the truce began earlier on Sunday, an Israeli military official told CNN.
Displaced Gazans have started returning to their homes, while the aid trucks laden with much-needed supplies have crossed into Gaza. Here’s what we know about how the ceasefire deal will work.
Hamas, despite suffering devastating losses, is framing the Gaza ceasefire agreement as a victory for itself, and a failure for Israel.
One of Hamas’ main goals for taking some 250 people during its brazen October 7, 2023, attack on Israel was to secure the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. As Israel pounded Gaza in response, Hamas vowed not to return the hostages until Israel withdrew its forces from the enclave, permanently ended the war, and allowed for rebuilding.
Source: CNN
The leader of UK’s Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, has said she doesn’t want Britain to be like Nigeria that is plagued by “terrible governments.”
Speaking on Thursday at an event organised by Onward, a British think tank producing research on economic and social issues, Badenoch expressed fears that Britain may become like Nigeria if the system is not reformed.
“And why does this matter so much to me? It’s because I know what it is like to have something and then to lose it,” Badenoch told the audience.
“I don’t want Britain to lose what it has.
“I grew up in a poor country and watched my relatively wealthy family become poorer and poorer, despite working harder and harder as their money disappeared with inflation.
“I came back to the UK aged 16 with my father’s last £100 in the hope of a better life.
“So I have lived with the consequences of terrible governments that destroy lives, and I never, ever want it to happen here.”
Badenoch has been in the news of late after she dissociated herself from Nigeria, saying she has nothing to do with the Islamic northern region.
She also accused the Nigeria Police of robbing citizens instead of protecting them.
She said: “My experience with the Nigeria Police was very negative. Coming to the UK, my experience with the British Police was very positive.
“The police in Nigeria will rob us (laughter). When people say I have this bad experience with the police because I’m black, I say well…I remember the police stole my brother’s shoe and his watch.”
