FG accuses APC of politicising ASUU strike
The Federal Government has in unmistaken terms accused the opposition All Progressives Congress of exploiting the five-month-old strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for political advantage.
The government through the Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, charged the APC of manipulating the lecturers and prodding them on with the aim of gaining political advantage and ascending to power on the wings of the crisis in the education sector.
According to the minister, spoke at the monthly press conference, which took place at the National Press Centre, Radio House in Abuja, APC is engaging in opportunism and making a mountain out of nothing by covertly prodding ASUU leadership to continue with the trade dispute despite the concessions that the government made to the academicians.
Maku accused the APC of plotting and praying that the ASUU strike extends to 2015, so that the problem can become a campaign issue.
The minister appealed to politicians not to take unnecessary advantage or make unmerited political gain out of problems facing the country, stressing that ASUU embarked on the strike with a good intention of improving the education sector before it was hijacked by unscrupulous politicians who have become speculators in crisis.
'I know ASUU very well. ASUU went into the strike out of the conviction that they would get more resources for the universities but opportunists in the APDPC who do not know that the umbrella is now standing on top of the APC symbols are trying to make gains out of it.
The people from the PDP have already taken over APC and it has become APDPC and we are having old wine in old bottle and these people have nothing to offer the country.
'The situation on the ground now is that the APDPC is trying to take advantage of the strike by pretending that they have something better to offer. But they have nothing to offer, nothing except criticism.
The rebels from the PDP have taken over the APC and they have been trying to convert the strike into a campaign issue for their own good. They are converting the strike to opportunistic electoral advantage and that is unfortunate,' Maku said. He said the recent merger of the New PDP with the APC will not create any measurable advantage for the APC, adding that it would rather undermine the party as the PDP members who defected will always work for their mother party during elections.
'We know everybody in this country and we know those who have been dancing naked in the public with the hope of gaining unnecessary political advantage over the ruling party. This is very unfortunate and very unfair,' Maku said.
He equally warned ASUU leadership to guard against yielding and acting under the extraneous influence of politicians who have nothing to offer the country. Addressing the prolonged strike more directly, the minister called on ASUU to return to classes as the government has provided N200billion for infrastructure and another N45billion for staff allowances.
He said the Federal Government's intervention in education sector has also been extended to the construction of 100 almajiri schools in the past two years, to absorb the estimated 9. 5million children roaming the streets in the North without basic education. The minister appealed to well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on ASUU to return to classes stressing that the Federal Government would always meet its divergent obligations in every sector according to the resources available for use each year.