Strike: Buhari plays psychological game, ASUU responds to presidency

By Deborah Tolu-Kolawole

July 12, 2022

The Universities Academic Staff Union reacted on Tuesday to comments by the president, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (Retired), regarding the union's ongoing strike.

The PUNCH reports that Buhari had on Monday, in a statement signed by his spokesperson, Garba Shehu, told striking lecturers to consider the next generation and get back to work.

“We hope ASUU sympathizes with the people on the extended strike. Really, it’s enough to keep students home. Don’t hurt the next generation, for God’s sake,” said Buhari.

But the president of ASUU, Federal University of Minna, Dr. Gbolahan Bolarin, accused the president of playing psychological games by involving the future generation in his statement.

According to the President of ASUU in a statement made available to our correspondent in Abuja, he noted that the President who spoke about the struggles of ASUU before becoming President, did not put his knowledge of the struggles of university professors in use.

“The media space was flooded with a statement attributed to President Buhari regarding the ASUU struggle last night, and with fallout until this morning. Hence the need to give this brief response in order let Nigerians know if “enough is enough”.

“First, Mr. President spoke a lot about the ASUU struggle a few years ago before he became President and one would have expected him to know more about it than some people, but unfortunately , his statement yesterday suggested otherwise. I won't blame the president that much, I can only say that his masters are his enemies because if the president had been properly informed about this, he wouldn't have made this statement.

"Again, the president said enough is enough, what is enough? Was he talking about the attitude of his direct order appointees, as evidenced by the directive he gave on February 1, 2022, and was not carried out for more than two months? Was he tired of going through reports on assignments given to different agencies? Those are more his faults and not those of the company. 'Union.

“The President was trying to play a mind game by bringing the (next generation) students into the statement forgetting that the professors, like any other ordinary Nigerian, have their children and wards in universities public universities, but his children are/were/n't/never in public universities.

"Unfortunately, after six months of keeping the students at home due to its mishandling of the strike issues, the government realizes that they are parents when their children don't even know what the doors of the schools look like. public universities in the country. Like. There is no need to paint the ASUU struggle in such a coloring because we all know that the political class doesn't care much about the rest of us because they only believe that students are good for political violence.

"I was so happy when the president mentioned that we should be tech-savvy, the question we have to ask again is: Do we have the means to make us an innovative nation through our universities? Isn't upgrading the facilities of our universities to make us competitive among ASUU's demands? Then, I think enough is enough daydreaming.

Speaking later in the statement, the ASUU President cautioned the Presidential Spokesperson and other government officials against politicizing ASUU issues.

"Unfortunately, some aides to the president believe that academic staff can only think to the maximum at their own level of reasoning. The president's media aide, Mr. Garba Shehu, was on Channels TV yesterday saying that "why is ASUU holding President Buhari to ransom? It's like the fight is personal. He should go back in time and tell us if President Buhari was in power in the 90s , 2009 (the strike that led to the famous agreement), 2013 (the six-month strike), etc.

“Government agents should stop playing politics with everything, especially when lives are at stake. resolved who can make any sane person bend?

"I'm very disappointed when I heard 'they should go back to school while we continue to negotiate with them' do they think we're stupid or a bunch of idiots who can't process things right We've been on strike for almost six months and you haven't managed to solve a single one of the problems and you want us to go back to school to declare a new strike...