FG won’t renege on agreement with ASUU ― Minister

THE Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, has said the Federal Government will not renege on the agreement with Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) leading to the suspension of the about three-month-old strike action.

Adamu, speaking with newsmen during the weekend in Abuja, said the Federal government is putting in place necessary mechanism towards ensuring that incessant strike by staff unions in the nation’s tertiary institutions become a thing of the past.

He said if the government succeeds in its plans nobody would hear of ASUU strike or any other staff unions across tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

He also dismissed speculations that the Federal Government had plans to shutdown schools across the country during the period of the forthcoming general elections.

He, however, officially announced February 15 to 19 as the mid-term break for students of all the 104 unity schools across the country.

The Minister commended the leadership of ASUU for suspending the prolonged strike last week Thursday, saying: “Despite my anger and anxiety with ASUU, I must also commend their patriotism and public spiritedness because the last few weeks were about the struggle for education system and not their allowances.”

He expressed optimism that the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP) would also suspend its two months strike soon.

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While stressing that the government has no plans to close private and public schools in the country ahead of the general elections, Adamu said this would enable students of voting age who registered in their various institutions to exercise their civic duties during the elections.

He said: “Our students in unity schools are not of voting age, but we adjusted the mid-term break to make it fall within the elections period.

“The date for the mid-term break will be from Friday, February 15 to Tuesday, February 19. This is for only unity schools in the country. We are not shutting down other schools.

“The essence of this break is to enable parents to have maximum time to go and cast their votes and have the freedom to bring their children and wards back to school.

“Even if the child is not of voting age, the parent is of voting age. The break is only for presidential elections. There is no break for governorship elections,” he said.