Atiku begs ASUU to shelve strike

Ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar has appealed to the Academic Staff Union of Universities to suspend its strike action and embrace negotiation with the government.

The university lecturers had on Wednesday commenced a one-week strike over failure by the Federal Government to implement the 2009 Agreement and 2013 Memorandum of Understanding.

Speaking during his 70th birthday celebration in Yola on Thursday, Atiku said his concern was about the children who would be out of school, while calling on the union to shelve the strike action.

He said, “My call to ASUU is for the sake of the education of our children, I call on them to suspend their strike action and continue negotiations because I believe at the end of the day an amicable resolution of the issues in contention would be reached. The most important thing is to think of the children not going to school.”

The former Vice President also reiterated his position that if he had been the President of Nigeria, the Boko Haram insurgency, which had plagued the North Eastern part of the country, would not have existed, saying the absence of strong political will and courage in dealing with the uprising was to blame for the lingering situation.