By EmmanuelUgwu-Nwogo:
As the ongoing strike of Nigerian public universities enters its eighth month, a member of Enugu State House of Assembly, Hon Chima Obieze, has made a passionate plea for an end to the protracted strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
He made the call at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) yesterday when he met with his constituents, who are members of the ASUU and Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), to know how they were coping with the effects of the ongoing strike.
The lawmaker, who represents Ezeagu state constituency in the Enugu State Assembly, donated N1 million palliative to the members of the two staff unions to enable them attend to their immediate needs.
He urged the federal government and ASUU to speedily resolve their differences and reach an agreeable resolution of the impasse without further delay, adding that the protracted strike was greatly hurting students, university workers, and destroying the university system.
Obieze, therefore, urged all stakeholders in the education sector “to push for total reform and overhaul of the sector,” adding that time was ripe to launch a holistic intervention to save the future of education and Nigerian youths.
Nonetheless, the state lawmaker pointed out that the government alone cannot solve all the problems of the education sector, hence, the need for interventions of all well-meaning and patriotic Nigerians and individuals that value education like him.
Leader of the UNN workers from the lawmaker’s constituency, Prof S.N. Machebe, who is the most senior lecturer
in UNN from Ezeagu, lauded Obieze for the kind gesture and care for his constituents in the ivory tower at their difficult period.
He said what the lawmaker has done was indeed “mind-blowing,” noting that with leaders like Obieze, there was hope that in no distant time Ezeagu constituency would overcome its challenges in both infrastructure and manpower development.
