Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, former President of Nigeria, has said that industrial strikes during his tenure as president were politically motivated stressing that it was aimed at destroying his track record of the efforts he made in the education sector.
The former president made this disclosure at the launch of “ Dear President Goodluck Jonathan”, a book written by Bonaventure Melah to record the achievements of the former President while he was in the office last Tuesday at International Conference Centre, Abuja. “The longest strike during my tenure, I felt was political because I did everything to encourage education and even to make sure that strike did not go on for long,” he said.
The strike referred to by the former president was embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in July 2013 and was called off in December of the same year. ASUU claimed to have gone on strike because of the non-implementation of the 2009 agreement by the Federal Government. At the time, Nyesom Wike was the acting Minister of Education. According to Jonathan, he did his best to deescalate the showdown between the government and ASUU to no avail for a long time.