APC to FG: Take responsibility for mishandling ASUU strike

APC to FG: Take responsibility for mishandling ASUU strike

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked the PDP-led federal government to take responsibility for mishandling the lingering ASUU strike, instead of accusing the opposition of seeking to capitalize on it to win the 2015 election.

In a statement issued in Ilorin on Sunday by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party also said there is no point offering any alternative solution to the strike when it is glaring to all that all the FG needs to do to end the logjam is to honour the agreement it willingly signed with the union in 2009.

It accused Minister of Information Labaran Maku of insulting the intelligence of the striking lecturers by suggesting that they are being manipulated by the APC, wondering what more blunders the FG will commit before the strike is over.

APC said the litany of blunders committed by the FG include reneging on the pact it signed with ASUU, failing to think out of the box to end the strike and finally nailing its own coffin by threatening to sack the lecturers for daring to demand the pact's implementation, an unforced error that has now backfired on the government which is looking for a face-saving measure.

''To the waffling and dishonourable FG, we say the APC does not need ASUU strike to win the 2015 election when the PDP and the government which the party sired at the centre have done everything there is to do to lose the election. The biggest obstacle to PDP's victory in 2015 is the PDP itself.

''Apart from being incompetent, this administration has succeeded in shooting itself in the foot time and again. A government that is swimming in corruption cannot expect to win the hearts and minds of Nigerians, who know first hand what corruption has done to the country. A government that has no clue regarding the provision of world-class infrastructure cannot expect to win the votes of the citizenry. A government that has further plunged the nation into darkness in the name of privatizing
the power sector has already received a vote of no confidence from the people,'' the party said.

It advised Mr. Maku to save the energy he is using to disparage the APC because he will need it to explain to an incredulous nation why a Minister serving in the same cabinet with him has continued to strut around despite being immersed in monumental corruption; why Nigeria's rating by the global anti-corruption body Transparency International has fallen drastically despite the claim by the FG that it is fighting corruption and why Sure-P that is expected to help ameliorate the sufferings imposed on Nigerians by the FG has now become a source of monumental corruption and slush funds for 2015.

''Mr Maku should also explain to Nigerians why the administration he is serving has squirreled out 5 billion dollars from the Excess Crude Account, only to deny such, and why a government that has no answer to the shortage of university teachers is issuing a sack threat to the few who have braved the odds to take up the onerous task of developing our youths,'' APC said