ASUU Strike: Baraje-led PDP faction goes spiritual

ASUU Strike: “New PDP” calls for fasting,
prayers.
A factional chairman of the Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP, Abubakar Baraje,
has requested all members of the party
worldwide to embark on seven days of
fasting and prayers commencing from
Monday, September 16 as one of the
ways of resolving the ongoing strike by
the Academic Staff Union of Universities,
ASUU.
Mr. Baraje said his faction decided to
commit the present logjam in educational
sector to God because it has proven too
intractable for the Federal Government to
solve.
He said his party was deeply concerned
by the plight of students and parents due
to the continued closure of public
universities following the strike by ASUU
to protest the Federal Government’s
failure to implement the agreement it
signed with the Union in 2009.
“Muslims all over the nation and abroad
who are PDP members should close their
fast by this Friday, 20th of September,
2013, at their places of worship while the
Christians should end theirs on Sunday,
22nd September, 2013 at their places of
worship,”. Mr. Baraje said in a statement
on Sunday in Abuja.
The statement, which was signed by the
spokesperson of the faction,
Chukwuemeke Eze, said it had become
imperative to seek the face of God over
the lingering industrial action considering
that “all efforts to resolve this
unwarranted strike have failed woefully
and considering the socio-economic
damage this strike has caused both
parents and our children,” Mr. Eze said.
He said he was confident that their
resolve to go to God would succeed as the
importance of fasting and prayers could
not ” be overemphasized”.
Ashamed of the government
Mr. Eze said members of the faction are
shocked that the government inflicting
this monumental hardship on Nigerians is
a PDP Government popularly elected by
majority of Nigerians and run by a
president who was once a university
lecturer.
He asked for forgiveness from Nigerians
on behalf of the federal government and
assured that the party would find a way
out of the “shameful situation”.
Sets up four-man committee
Mr. Eze also said the factional chairman,
had set up a four-man committee, under
the leadership of Governor Babangida
Aliyu of Niger State, to advise the party on
the best way to get the Federal
Government’s Negotiating Committee and
the leadership of ASUU to reach an
agreement on the issues at stake and
therefore end the three-month-old strike.
Other members of the committee are
Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa
State, Chinwo Ike, President of the
University of Port Harcourt Alumni, and
Timi Frank, the faction’s National Youth
Leader.
Mr. Eze said the setting up of the
committee became urgent as reports
reaching the faction indicated that many
of students “have out of frustration and
boredom turned to prostitution, armed
robbery and other vices due to the
prolonged industrial action”.
Police should unseal our secretariats
Mr. Eze asked the detachment of police
officers currently stationed at the faction’s
secretariat to vacate the property
following Friday’s decision by
a Federal High Court in Abuja which ruled
that the Baraje faction of the PDP should
be allowed to operate without any further
harassment or inhibition.
Justice E.S. Chukwu had in his ruling held
that there was no evidence before the
court to show any misconduct on the part
of Baraje’s faction as claimed by the
Tukur-led faction, which requested it to
stop the Baraje-led PDP from operating.
“We, therefore, wish to appeal to President
Goodluck Jonathan to save the Police
from the plot to ridicule it by using it to
perpetrate illegality such as sealing the
lawfully-acquired National Secretariat of
PDP and our Secretariats in states like
Rivers, Bayelsa, Kaduna and Kwara,” Mr.
Eze said.
“The powers that be should as a matter
of urgency stop projecting and portraying
the Police as a tool of injustice and attack
on the perceived political opponents of Mr.
President” Eze. Said.
He said the faction would continue to use
the Judiciary to prove to Mr. Tukur’s
faction that the days of running the affairs
of the PDP with impunity and high-
handedness were over.
He said the time had come for Mr. Tukur
to correctly read the handwriting on the
wall and honourably throw in the towel
along with other members of his National
Working Committee