FG won’t be forced to borrow to pay ASUU – Keyamo

Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo said the Federal Government (FG) will not allow the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU to push it into another rounnd of borrowings.

Keyamo made this assertion while speaking during an interview with Politics Today on Channels Television on Friday.

He said the FG has explored all avenues to reach a truce, but the striking ASUU members turned deaf ears.

Keyamo stated that ASUU failed to honour dialogue with the key stakeholders holding the purse of the federal government.

The minister said the government could not exceed its capacity, because it is not only ASUU that is feeding from the FG purse.

“Should we go and borrow to pay N1.2 trillion yearly?

“You cannot allow one sector of the economy to hold you by the jugular and then blackmail you to go and borrow N1.2 trillion for overheads when our total income would be about N6.1 trillion. And you have roads to build, health centres to build, other sectors to take care of”, he said.

When asked further what was his message to ASUU, parents and Nigerian public, Keyamo said he appealed to ASUU members to go back to the class and urged the parents to join in the appeal.

Keyamo’s stance appears in tune with government’s hardline position on the matter since the strike started in February.

President Muhammadu Buhari had given the Minister of Education two weeks to resolve the crisis without success as ASUU early week extended its strike by another month.