The hierarchy of the Academic Staff Union of Universities has insisted that the strike embarked upon by the its members will continue because accepting what the government was offering would only be postponing the
evil day because the amount would continue to mount.
Chairman, ASUU, Cross River University
of Technology (CRUTECH), Dr Nsing Ogar accused the government of
insincerity. He said the N100 billion the government is paying now
should have been released in April last year – with an additional N400
billion this year. He said by 2015 the amount released should be N1.3
trillion.
He said: “Last year, there was an
agreement between the government and ASUU that N100 billion would be
injected into the university system to upgrade facilities. It was
supposed to be released immediately. The Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU) was signed in January 2012 and by April that sum of money was
supposed to have been released. Also in that MoU there was an agreement
that in 2013 another N400 billion would be released. Then in 2014
another N400 billion. Then in 2015 another N400 billion. That makes N1.3
trillion to upgrade facilities in the university system. We had tried
to talk with government to ensure that these amount were released, they
did not accept and that is why we are on strike. And if in 2013 they are
releasing N100 billion, there is a shortfall of N400 billion, they have
not told us, what next would happen in 2014 and 2015.”
On his part, Dr. Abdulkadir Mohammed,
the branch ASUU chairman, Kano University of Science and Technology,
Wudil, said members were irked that the N100 billion was recycled from
the universities’ funds.
He said: “Even the N100 billion that the
government is talking about, there is a recommendation of the Technical
Committee on how the N100 billion should be disbursed, that has been
breached by government. Secondly, Nigerians should know the source of
the N100 billion because our MoU with the government clearly stated that
this money should be sourced outside state fund; that government should
scout for the N1.3 trillion from other sources outside the Tertiary
Education Trust Fund but we realised that the government is trying to do
now is to go and block all the money in the state fund, mop it up and
channel it into financing the recommendation of the need assessment and
that is also not acceptable.
“The union would not accept the effort
by the government to mop the money belonging to universities within the
Education sector for this purpose. The agreement is that they should
scout for money elsewhere to finance this agreement and therefore if
they fail to do that, this crisis will not abate.”
Dr David Nanson Jangkam, Chairman of the
University of Jos (UNIJOS) ASUU Chapter, said the N30 billion the
government paid as earned allowances was just a third of the debt it
owes the lecturers.
“Let me tell you the level of
insincerity of the government, the earned allowance, they are owing us
is N92 billion, out of which the government has offered N30 billion,
this is one-third of what they are owing us. Regarding the so called
N100 billion they claimed to have approved for need assessment, they are
taking that fund from the TETFund, which means they are robbing the
university to pay the university,” he said.
Information from The Nation newspaper was used in this report.
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