By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja.
Prof.Olayemi Akinwunmi,VC,FUL.
The Vice Chancellor, Federal University, Lokoja,FUL,Prof. Olayemi Akinwunmi, has lamented the continued strike by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU and its sour effects on University staff and students.
He expressed his feeling in a statement signed by the Public Relations Officer,PRO, for the University, Daniel Nwanko and made a copy available to The Reporters in Lokoja on Sunday.
The Vice-Chancellor, who noted that the level of hardship in the country had reached an unbearable height,sued for a speedy and amicable resolution of the current industrial actions by ASUU and other Unions in the Public Universities.
The VC also deplored the difficulties being faced by federal workers, particularly those in the education sector, saying that they had been passing through “unimaginable stress and financial burdens in providing for their families”.
“The students are now exposed to all forms of peer pressure due to their idleness at home,occasioned by the impasse between the Federal Government and all the University-based Unions,” the renowned historian noted.
He, therefore, urged the students to seize the opportunity of the strike and enroll in skills acquisition programmes to acquire new knowledge and engage their minds in productive ventures while waiting for the strike to be called off.
The university boss also advised the staff to be their brother’s keeper at this trying period, adding that ” those whom God has blessed and have little more than the others should extend gestures to those who have none.”
Prof. Akinwunmi, who also expressed concern over deaths that visited the university community in recent time,told the staff be on a constant lookout for each other until the current imbroglio between the government and university unions is resolved.
The Reporters recalls that ASUU members began strike more than four months ago over their welfare, funding of public universities IPPIS among other sundry issues.
The strike led to the stoppage of salaries of members of the union and other varsity-baaed unions by the federal government while stakeholders are making conscious efforts to resolve the problem.
