Strike: It’s Unfortunate FG Has No Regard For Nigerian Education System – ASUU

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) says since after calling off its eight months strike, the Federal Government is yet to address the demands of the union.

VerseNews Nigeria reports that the union in 2022 called off its prolong strike after reaching an agreement with FG.

The demands by the lecturers include the release of revitalisation funds for universities, renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, release of earned allowances for university lecturers, and deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS).

In an interview with the ‘Channels TV’ on Thursday, the National President of ASUU, Emmanuel Osodeke said the Nigeria government has abandoned the problem despite efforts by lecturers to cover up the academic calendar.

He condemned the unserious altitude by the President Muhammed Buhari led-government towards the country’s education system.

 “As far as this present government is concerned, once the strike is over, the issue is resolved unknown to them that a strike is a symptom of a problem. They have abandoned the problem. Since we called off the strike based on a court directive, not a single meeting has been called. Not a kobo has been paid,”

“It is so unfortunate that they don’t have any regard for the Nigerian education system,” Osodeke said.

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Speaking on the approved N320.3 billion 2023 intervention for public tertiary institutions, Osodeke said is a need development but must be redistributed to ensure that it accounts for 90% of what has been approved to go to universities, polytechnic and not kept as bureaucracy or whatever. 

“This is what has been happening in TETFund and I think there is a need to examine what exactly is happening at TETFund. The idea of this TETFund when it was negotiated by ASUU was that this money will come and be distributed to the universities, not keeping 41% for whatever purpose.

“I think we need a redistribution of this fund to ensure that it accounts for 90% of what has been approved to go to universities, polytechnic and not kept as bureaucracy or whatever. You need to tell the public what TETFund is doing with the balance of N132 billion,” the ASUU chairman added.