The Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo, SAN, has urged those who ‘know’ the Academic Staff Union of Universities to appeal to their sense of patriotism.
He wants them to understand the stand of the Federal Government and call off their strike.
According to him, the government does not have the over one trillion naira they are allegedly asking for.
Speaking on Channels Television on Friday, Keyamo said:
“The moment they went on strike, we intervened, what is the manner again beyond that ? Even before the strike began, we called them to a meeting, what manner is more than that? It’s not like we left them to go on strike first and we were sleeping, as the talk started, they still went on strike.
“You can not allow one sector of the economy to hold you down and then blackmail you to go and borrow N1.2 trillion and our total income is around N6.1 trillion and we have roads to build, health centres and other sectors to take care of.
“I will tell the parents, everybody to go and beg ASUU like the President said the other time, those who know them should appeal to their sense of patriotism. The nation can not ground to a halt because we want to take care of the demands of ASUU”.
