The President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Emmanuel Osodeke, has blamed the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, for the union’s unending strike and fruitless negotiations with the Federal Government.
The ASUU President spoke on Friday in an interview aired on Arise Television monitored by our correspondent.
Osodeke said Ngige ought to be an independent and unbiased entity in the reconciliation process but the minister has since acted otherwise.
He said, “This negotiation has been going on since 2017, five years ago, and we’ve not concluded because of the Minister of Labour, as we have seen in his demonstration.
“You see, we are not discussing with the Minister of Labour. The Minister of Labour was supposed to be a reconcilator when we have a problem with our minister. An independent, unbiased, reconcilator, but from what he’s been speaking now, we have found that he’s very biased. So, that’s the problem we have with this negotiation.”
ASUU had been on strike since mid-February and students of private tertiary institutions had been at home as the striking lecturers demand their benefits from the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).
ASUU had previously embarked on a nine-month strike in 2020.
