ASUU, Kano Zone, has cautioned President Bola Tinubu about the country’s descent into anarchy and chaos as a result of widespread hunger and starvation among Nigerians.
The union expressed concerns that the government’s embrace of IMF and World Bank neo-liberal policies could lead to increased instability and uncertainty in the nation.
Dr Abdulkadir Muhammad, the coordinator of ASUU, Kano Zone, delivered this warning during a press conference following a zonal meeting in Kano where pressing issues were deliberated by the Union’s representatives from seven universities in the zone.
According to Muhammad: “We, as intellectuals, will not join in the current protests across the country, but rather, we will team up with civil society organisations and NGOs to compel government to drop the policies.”
He said further: “We will use all available legal means to compel government to drop these anti-people IMF-World Bank policies, because the nation, whether you like it or not, is drafting gradually into anarchy while the President and his teams are making excuses.”
ASUU also called on the President to faithfully implement the content of the agreement it freely signed with the union, describing it as the only way to end strikes in Nigerian universities.
Issues in the agreement include the renegotiation of the Federal Government-ASUU 2009 agreement, which was reached when the exchange rate to the dollar was N146.7, which currently has risen above N1,700, a development the union said has eroded their salary by 90 per cent.
He said further that ASUU lamented the refusal of the Nigerian government to sign a draft agreement reached with the union, even after changing the leaders of the negotiation committee several times.
“Therefore, ASUU calls on the President Tinubu-led administration to immediately set in motion the process of upward-reviewing and signing of the Nimi Briggs Committee’s renegotiated draft agreement as a mark of goodwill and to forestall industrial crisis and restore hope for Nigeria’s public universities,” Muhammad stated.
