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Meanwhile, over 13,000 people have signed the petition, three months after it was initiated.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore started an online petition in May to ask President Muhammad Buhari to end the ongoing strike embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
Meanwhile, over 13,000 people have signed the petition, three months after it was initiated.
The petition was initiated to force Buhari Government to find a lasting solution to the lingering strike.
University lecturers in all Nigerian public universities have been on strike since February and students run the risk of spending nearly a year at home if the government doesn’t negotiate to end the ASUU strike.
It is not news that students spend at least 8 years in public universities to complete a 4-year-course in Nigeria because of the incessant ASUU strikes. Lecturers in Nigerian public schools receive some of the lowest salaries in the world.
Sowore said, “I have been a student union leader and I know the pain that Nigerian students are currently facing having to watch your government do nothing.
“We are asking the Nigerian government to put an end to this by fulfilling agreements with ASUU now.
“This government cares less whether schools are shut or open because our leader’s children go to the top league schools abroad. President Buhari’s children graduated from UK universities and almost all members of the National Assembly and state governors have their children in various schools in the United States or the UK.
“The Federal Government is not negotiating with the lecturers or honoring agreements they have entered with ASUU to ensure the smooth running of higher institutions in Nigeria because they have other priorities. Instead of negotiating with the ASUU to get the students back to university and lecturers back to teaching, the government is more concerned about negotiating with airline operators who had threatened to shut down operations.
“An average lecturer in a public university in Nigeria earns one of the lowest salaries in the world while our lawmakers or governor receive the highest salaries compared to other countries. Our universities are struggling to provide quality education because they are grossly underfunded and it clearly shows by the yearly budget that education is NOT a priority for the government.
“A paltry portion of the national budget goes to education and that is unacceptable and we cannot continue like THIS.”
