The Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria (MMWG) has called on the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the federal government to shift ground and seek deliberate ways of resolving the crisis in the interest of the nation.
The group in a statement by its National Coordinator, Mal. Ibrahim Abdullahi, Tuesday in Abuja, admonished that the hard-line posture of ASUU and the federal government would not help matters.
It appealed to ASUU to show more patriotism by calling off the strike since the federal government has accepted the new pay platform, UTAS, introduced by it with a marginal increase in salaries of its members.
MMWG also called on the federal government to be magnanimous by waving the ‘No Work, No Pay’ policy on the strike, pointing out that the matter is now delicate and cannot be resolved by any hard-line stance.
It urged that “the striking lecturers be paid their outstanding salaries to date as soon as they resume duty so that lectures could commence, pointing out that the seven-month strike by ASUU is creating economic hardship for most Nigerians and it is reversing the educational gains already achieved.
“As parents themselves, ASUU is supposed to give consideration to the economic hardship created by its strike and resolve the crisis by bending to get the matter resolved by resuming duties latest by Monday, 29th August, 2022 so that theFederal Government could order payment of their outstanding salaries, give go-ahead to UTAS pay platform and negotiation for other demand could continue after the resumption of lectures,” it added.
On the other hand, MMWG charged federal government and the National Assembly to ensure serious economic crimes are unavailable.
It also called for the abolishment of ‘Plea Bargaining’ in the nation’s Administration of Criminal Justice (ACJ) system.
