Afe Babalola Urges FG To Ban Strike Actions In Education Sector To Stop ‘Almighty’ ASUU

The founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola, has blamed the exception of Universities’ final year students in the federal government’s plan to reopen schools on the face off between FG and the Academic Staff Union of Universities ASUU.

He begged the federal government to treat education as a necessary social service like the power sector where strike actions are forbidden and banned. 

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Babalola who described ASUU as the ‘Commander-in-Chief’ of Nigerian public universities, said he expected the exclusion of the final year students of universities in the country. 

The federal government had in March, ordered a blanket closure of all educational institutions in the country to curb the spread of the deadly Coronavirus pandemic. 

However, in late June, FG ordered the final year students in primary and secondary Schools particularly those in Primary Six, JSSIII and SSSIII to resume and take their final year examinations, leaving out the final year students in universities.

In a statement by the university’s head of corporate affairs, Mr Tunde Olofintila, Afe Babalola revealed that the federal government knew that if it directed final year students of public universities to resume, the ‘almighty’ ASUU would object and in this case, ASUU has objected.

“Before I took over as Pro-chancellor and chairman of Council at the University of Lagos, even Council meetings could not take place unless ASUU and other Unions had been appeased or else such Council meetings would not be allowed to hold.

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“It was a serious matter at that time, but I successfully managed that,” Babalola said, drawing from his seven-year experience as Pro-chancellor and chairman of Council at the University of Lagos.