FG, teachers’ face-off worsens

Soji-Eze Fagbemi, Abuja - 23.07.2008

With the hardine posture of the Federal Government on the ongoing nationwide teachers’ strike and the insistence of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) not to call off the strike unless the government issues the circular to direct the implementation of the enhanced allowances for its members, there is no end in sight to the crisis.

While the Minister of Education, Dr. Igwe Aja Nwachukwu, told the Senate on Tuesday that the NUT should direct its demands to the state governments, the teachers said they would not.

The Senate Committee on Education met separately with the minister and NUT officials on Tuesday as part of its intervention measures to resolve the crisis.

The committee members, who were not particularly happy with the hard-line position of the minister of education, asked him to be courageous enough to seek audience with President Umaru Yar’Adua and present a permanent solution to the problem.

Chairman of the committee, Senator Joy Emordi, who gave the directive at a meeting, also frowned at what she described as undue emphasis on federalism which, she said, was not in the interest of the country’s Vision 2015 on Education for All and Vision 2020, targeted at making Nigeria one of the 20 best economies in the world.

She told the minister that the perception of the people were right that his children were not affected by the crisis as the minister revealed himself that his son was attending the Federal Government colleges, which were not part of the strike.