By Ahmad Deedat Zakari
Nigeria’s Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, on Thursday, April 21, 2022, said the decision to halt the ongoing strike solely lies with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
Ngige said this on Channels TV while featuring as a guest in the televised program ‘Politics Today.’
According to Ngige, the time the strike will end is only for ASUU to decide and that it is expected of the Union to decide if they have the student’s best interest at heart.
On when the strike, which has crippled academic activities in Nigeria’s public universities, will end, the Labour Minister said, “It depends on ASUU. The ball is in their court. They should go and meet the Benimi Briggs Committee and look at what the committee is doing and make further inputs so that work can be accelerated, ” he said
Ngige added that ASUU’s attitude towards the labour crisis is not helping the situation.
“ASUU has to come down from their high horse. You cannot go and start intimidating people in NITDA and threatening the Minister of Digital Economy and Communication with revocation of his professorship that he is a fake professor. You go to ABU and say you are going to withdraw the certificate of the director of NITDA. That’s bullying. It is not allowed in Labour negotiations,” he stated.
