Minister of Labour and Employment Chris Ngige has turned the issues with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) into a personal quarrel.
This was revealed by a former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, in an interview with Arise Television monitored in Abuja.
Jega said, “At the end of it, they make an agreement but when they get to the government, they say it is unrealistic, and these are some of the challenges, and I want to say something here, the minister of Labour, Chris Ngige, is not helping matters, he has turned this thing into a personal quarrel between him and the minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, on one hand, and between himself and the academic union on the other.
“The painful thing is while many other people are trying to find a way of addressing this situation so that students can go back to school and lecturers go back to work, he is just creating challenges.
“He took the matter to the industrial court and the decision has been appealed by ASUU and now, he has registered two unions while trying to proscribe ASUU. If this is allowed by this government, I think it is a recipe for disaster and it may really create more problems than it can solve on this matter of strike action.”
Aside taking the ASUU to National Industrial Court, Mr Ngige has further compounded the matter by creating two additional academic unions in the university.
