The Academic Staff Union of Universities has attributed the incessant strikes by lecturers to poor infrastructure and inadequate funding of public universities by the Federal Government. The Chairperson of the University of Jos chapter of the union, Jurbe Molwus, revealed this during a town hall organised by the union on Thursday in Jos. Molwus added that the failure of the federal government to honour the agreement it reached with the union over the years had also contributed to the industrial disharmony between the lecturers and the government.
“As a union, we are very reluctant about going on strike; we find it very painful anytime our members resolve to embark on industrial action. “But the failure of government to honour agreements it reached with the union is largely behind recurrent strikes. ASUU has entered a series of agreements with the government but all of them ended as promissory notes.
”Most of our public universities are now an eyesore; no basic infrastructure like lecture halls, equipped laboratories, among others, and this because successive governments refused to fund education properly,” he lamented. On the rationale for the town hall, Molwus said that it would provide an opportunity for the union and members of the public to interact on the challenges currently facing public universities in Nigeria. ”This meeting will give us the opportunity to discuss with Nigerians from all walks of life and fashion the best ways of tackling the current challen.
