ASUU Strike Will Be Over Withing The Next 48 hrs....Religious Leaders

Senate President, David Mark,  Sunday took stock of the lingering strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and pleaded with the religious leaders across the country to quickly intervene in the crisis rocking the nation's education sector.

Addressing the second plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) in Otukpo,  Benue State yesterday, Mark said the differences  between the federal government  and ASUU required spiritual intervention in order to end the imbroglio.

This is against the backdrop of the collapse of dialogue between the federal  government negotiating team and ASUU over the latter's demand.

He lamented the plight of the students, who have been deprived of a stable academic calender and the consequences of the strike, pointed out that  "the culture of confrontation and conflict does not build harmony between and among people, therefore, we must always seek the culture of dialogue, reconciliation and forgiveness. We have a duty to work hard to overcome all barriers to peace."

On the issue of insecurity in the country, the Senate President stated that the state of insecurity in the country was worrisome, considering the high number of innocent Nigerians who die everyday as a result of bombing, armed robbery, road accident, pagan ritual activities and cultism.

He charged Nigerians  not to use religion for negative purposes, stressing that "religion is to unite and not to divide, to love and not to hate, to gather and not to scatter, to be just and not to be unjust."

Mark also frowned at provocative utterances by some highly placed people that were capable of tearing down the society saying such utterances should be curtailed.
He, however, admonished that the present religious, economic and political turmoil should not scare anybody, adding that: "as Nigerians, we should remain resolute and focussed. As a people, we should continue to fast and pray. I acknowledge the fact that prayer without good work is dead. We should also embark on serious good work at all levels to ensure good governance and a better Nigeria."

Mark, who expressed optimism that Nigerians were capable of overcoming the challenges, said this could only be achieved if we work together and see ourselves as one people bound by a common mission and purpose.

Earlier, the Governor of Benue State, Mr. Gabriel Suswam, called for partnership between the church, government and the people in order to fast track political development and stability in the country.

Suswam urged the Bishops to use the session to appeal to ASUU to shift ground as the federal government has made reasonable concessions to their demands  to give peace a chance and return students back to schools.

In his welcome address, the President of CBCN, Most Rev. Ignatius  Kaigama, urged Christians to be loyal to biblical teachings in all their dealings.

Kaigama called for interior purifications among Nigerians, adding that with renewed commitment to the task of teaching and sanctifying, Nigeria will over come her travails.

He charged governments at all levels to channel resources towards the welfare and security of the citizenry even as he urged the clergy to pray for leaders at all levels.
In another development, the Redeemer’s University at the weekend urged the federal government to broker peace with the ASUU in order to save the country’s university system from collapse.

The institution, one of the country’s foremost private universities, also asked the federal government “to declare openly and publicly if it can no longer sustain the funding of the public universities in the country effectively.”

The institution’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Debo Adeyewa, expressed this concern over the ASUU strike at a news conference he addressed alongside the Registrar, Mr. Bola Oloketuyi, and other principal officials of the university.

Adeyewa, who spoke on various activities to mark the fifth convocation of the university founded almost a decade ago, stated that the federal government was not doing enough to promote a culture of robust research and higher learning.

He explained that private universities “are not rejoicing that ASUU is on strike. We are not happy that our undergraduates at the public universities are at home. We appeal to the federal government and ASUU to end the strike.”
The vice-chancellor called on the striking university dons to understand the position of the federal government while urging the latter meet the demand of the former taking cognisance of the level of infrastructure decay in the public universities.

He lamented the growing crisis of infrastructure and facilities, which he said, were in urgent need in the public universities “to promote a tradition of academic excellence and an environment enabling enough for research and development.”

Adeyewa acknowledged that the public universities and their staff (both academic and non-academic) “are faced a problem of infrastructure. One of them is unstable power supply. But we have been able to generate our own electricity through turbine. We have been enjoying what the entire country is yet to enjoy.”

According to him, there is no basis to compare the Redeemer’s University with the public universities. We make the environment conducive for learning and research. We do not have any record of vices. We are digitally connected and we know almost every student in every class because we have a robust tracking system.

But the vice-chancellor said the students of most public universities “are into various vices. Students out there are involved in cultism; some of them are agents of violence; others go into prostitution; and all manners of things happen in those institutions. On this note, there is no basis for comparison at all.”

Adeyewa said the university had turned out 1,992 since 2009 it had started graduating students, noting that it turned out 314 graduates in 2009; 397 in 2010; 312 in 2011; 450 in 2012 and 519 in 2013.

According to him, "we are trying to correct defects and errors notable in the public institutions. We believe in spiritual excellence, moral excellence and academic excellence. We have partnering parents to ensure that we give our students the best that can make them compete effectively in the international community."

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