ASUU STRIKE UPDATE: ASUU strike: Women protesters storm education ministry • Strike will end soon —FG ...Read more

AS the protracted strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) entered the 106th  day,  some women protesters stormed the Federal Ministry of  Education, Abuja, on Monday, demanding immediate resolution of the impasse.


The women,  led by members of the National Association of Market  Women (NAMW), carried placards with various inscriptions: “Enough is enough ”, “Our children must go back to school”, “FG/ASUU must resolve the strike now.”

The women  besieged the entrance gate to the ministry for several hours.
The protest came just as a non-governmental organisation with interest in research in education, Eduwatch Consults and Research Centre, Abuja,  called on President Goodluck Jonathan to summon the leadership of

ASUU to a meeting in  the Villa, in order to personally mediate in the crisis.
However,  the Federal Government has expressed hope that the prolonged strike by  ASUU will soon come to an end.

Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Dr Mac-John Nwaobiala, who stated this while addressing the protesters over the prolonged strike by ASUU, said  government rose from a meeting with ASUU leadership last week that ended on a positive note.

Dr Nwaobiala stressed that the concern by the market women was not a surprise in view of their position as mothers to the students who have been with them at home for nearly four months now.
He urged them to be patient with government and asked them to calm their wards to do same; expressing optimism that the issue would soon be resolved.

Earlier, the  national president of the market women  association, Chief (Mrs) Felicia Sani,  said  the women could no longer bear the prolonged strike which she described as politically motivated.
Sani said as mothers, they were worried that their children had been at home without hope of returning to school to continue with their studies.

Meanwhile, Eduwatch Consults and Research Centre,  Abuja which called on President Jonathan to personally wade into the crisis, has also urged ASUU to shift ground.

The National Coordinator of the Centre, Mr  Abayomi Ogunnowo, who spoke while addressing newsmen in Abuja, equally urged ASUU to have a rethink on its present position and end the ongoing strike in the interest of the millions of Nigerian students roaming the streets.

He insisted that the  strike had done more harm than good to university education, stressing that ASUU must not destroy what they are trying to build.

He said: “The Federal Government and ASUU should resolve the ongoing strike in order to prevent university students from taking to vices”. He recalled that a student in his neighbourhood was killed yesterday in Maiduguri, while majority of them have taken to criminality.

He appealed to ASUU to make some sacrifices based on what the Federal Government has offered with the intent to mitigate the decaying infrastructure in universities.