Stop playing politics with education of students, Suswam tells ASUU

Our Reporter September 6, 2013 4 Comments »

From ROSE EJEMBI, Makurdi
Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswam has described as impracticable, the insistence by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) that its members would not go back to class until all their demands as contained in the 2009 agreement are met. 
The governor urged the leadership of ASUU to stop playing politics with the education of Nigerian students, saying there was no basis for it to remain on strike when government was doing everything to meet its demand.
Suswam, who is the chairman of Universities Needs Assessment and Implementation Committee made the observation yesterday when he played host to the National Union of Benue State Students (NUBESS) at the Banquet Hall of the Government House in Makurdi.
While noting that the Federal Government (FG) had done everything that needed to be done to ensure that the strike was called off, the governor lamented that the leadership of ASUU was misleading the public about the true state of the issues involved.
The governor, who averred that state universities had no reason being on strike, posited that N100 billion had been shared on pro-rata basis to all universities out of which the Benue State University (BSU) got N950 million.
He maintained that the N30 billion released as End Allowance was to be shared among federal universities only and wondered why state universities had continued to be on strike.
“Benue State University has no business being on strike because out of the N100 billion that was released by the Federal Government, it got N950 million. ASUU should stop playing politics with the education of Nigerian students.”
He regretted that despite the fact that the Federal Government had shifted grounds to ensure amicable resolution of the problem, ASUU had refused to shift ground on the matter and called on Nigerians to engage ASUU with a view to making sure that the strike was called off.
Earlier, President of NUBESS, Matthew Mamwo, who commended the governor for his efforts at ensuring that the FG/ASUU rift was quickly resolved, appealed to ASUU to have pity on the students and call off the strike.