The governor of Bayelsa State, Douye Diri, has encouraged lecturers at the publicly funded Niger Delta University (NDU) to terminate their seven-month solidarity strike with the national organisation of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
According to Diri, the university lecturers’ sympathy strike was no longer warranted because they had been getting their pay on a monthly basis without reporting to work.
The professors should repay the goodwill of the state government by returning to the classroom in the benefit of the students, he said, even if the institution’s governing board has set a meeting with the union.
The governor was quoted as saying, “The state government has sorted out all the issues between it and the institution’s ASUU,” in a statement released on Wednesday, August 31, 2022 by his chief press secretary, Daniel Alabrah. The governor made the statement on Tuesday night at a dinner in Yenagoa in honour of the champion Bayelsa United Football Club.
Governor Diri remarked that while professors at state-owned universities no longer had problems with the federal government, they occasionally did so at federal tertiary institutions.
He said: “Let me use this opportunity to call on lecturers at the Niger Delta University to call off their strike. I have already given directives to the governing council, which represents the government in the management of that university.
“For about seven months they have been on strike. They call it a sympathy strike because the very local issues that they raised with our government have already been sorted out. So they have no problem with the state government.
“About two or three months ago, I met with the leadership at a meeting not to continue the sympathy strike. Yes, they are all unionists. However, in Nigeria, there are two layers of government that are totally different.
“The issues are with the federal universities and not the state institutions. State-owned institutions in our sister states like Rivers and Delta did not join the strike or have called off theirs. I would like the Niger Delta University to follow suit by calling off the strike.
“You all know that you cannot be receiving salaries and you do not go to work for seven months. Like I said, I have set up the machinery and I am very sure that reasoning will prevail. NDU will resume in the shortest possible time for our children to go back to school.”
