The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has declared Monday, February 7, 2022 as a “lecture-free day” in order to sensitise students, parents and other stakeholders on the brewing crisis arising from the failure of Federal Government to implement the agreements it entered with ASUU.
In a press release signed by the chairperson and secretary of the Bayero University, Kano (BUK) congress of the ASUU, Comrade Haruna Musa and Comrade Yusuf U. Madugu respectively, the union said it is going to observe the lecture-free day in compliance with the directives of ASUU National.
Justifying its action, the ASUU-BUK said it “strongly believes that education is the most important investment any nation can make. No nation can grow faster than its education.
“Members of ASUU are patriotic Nigerians who have decided to stay in Nigeria to contribute to nation-building not because they lack other alternatives but because they choose to invest in the future of this country, which is our only country.”
The two signatories said their union has made every effort and listened to voices of wisdom of many peace-loving Nigerians and organisations to suspend the December 2020 strike action in order to allow the government “to do the needful” to save the Nigerian university system from further deterioration, but the government has “ignored all the goodwill and genuine appeals made by well-meaning Nigerians on the way forward with regard to the resolution of the lingering impasse”.
They added that the union “acknowledges the recent intervention of the Nigerian Inter-religious Council (NIREC) towards addressing the lingering crisis and urges the FGN to listen to the words of wisdom in order to avert another disruption of academic calendar in our universities.”
It also said, “ASUU-BUK wishes to inform all stakeholders that any action taken by ASUU would be in the best interest of the Nigerian university system.
“The union, therefore, urges all concerned to join hands with ASUU in order to salvage the Nigerian university system from imminent collapse by prevailing on the government to, as a matter of urgency, implement all the agreements it freely entered with ASUU.
