The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has been enjoined to use the opportunity created by President Goodluck Jonathan's intervention to call off its four-month old strike.
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A cross-section of residents made the call in an interview in Umuahia on Wednesday.
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They expressed the hope that the president's intervention would bring an end to the impasse.
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Mr Lucky Akabuike, a former Chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress in Abia, said the university teachers would create more enemies for themselves if they failed to end the strike.
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"They will lose friends and the entire nation will turn against them if they did not use the President's intervention to call off the strike'', Akabuike said.
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He noted that students and parents were already agitated by the industrial action.
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He argued that strikes should be a means to an end and not an end itself.
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Akabuike said parties in an industrial dispute should be prepared to give and take during negotiations and that hard line positions do not augur well.