President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan during the yesterday presidential media chat showed that his administration was in no hurry to resolve ASUU strike, as he described the action as unfortunate and political.
The president said, "In the past, they did not go this far when strikes were called off; but now politics has gone into everything".
According to him, his administration has made effort at resolving the face-off but the lecturers have refused to accept anything less than their expectation.
Mr. Jonathan said his administration had made concessions for the strike to be resolved, and has demonstrated remarkable commitment to addressing the massive infrastructure in the universities, one of the key demands ASUU has made.
He said the lecturers have refused to accept the government's explanations that broad range reforms cannot be achieved instantly.
"Throughout this time, no government has taken inventory of all the problems in federal and state universities. We said this must change. But it cannot change overnight. So for ASUU to go on strike over infrastructure, they need to understand that we are serious about intervening starting with N100 billion," he said.
The lecturers have however vowed not to accept partial implementation of the agreement, with multiple intervention by the Senate and the House of Representatives stalemated.
Mr Jonathan's statement on Sunday revealed that, the ASUU strike would not be called off anytime soon. He said the 2009 agreement which ASUU has harped upon, was negotiated by officials incapable for such a responsibility as the agreement was "not implementable".
He therefore called on the lecturers to resume work for the sake of the Nigerian children, adding that even if government had all the money in the world, they can't change things overnight.
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