The Academic Staff Union of Universities has told the Federal Government to choose between funding universities or shutting them down.
ASUU National President, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, who said this in a telephone interview with our correspondent on Sunday, contended that the government must implement the agreement it signed with the union in 2009.
Osodeke said these in response to the Minister of Labour, Employment and Productivity, Dr Chris Ngige’s declaration that the Federal Government did not have the funds to meet its obligations in the agreement signed with ASUU.
Ngige said the government plans to renegotiate the terms of the agreement with ASUU in the effort to end the ongoing strike by university lecturers.
Osodeke said, “The Nigerian type of politician does not take education seriously. Can they tell this country how much they spent on COVID-19? I can assure you the crisis in education is 10 times what COVID-19 is because what shapes a nation is education.
“If it collapses, you have nothing. They were building railways here and there, They were bailing out DISCOs (electricity distribution companies) which they sold to private people, but they are still buying meters for them to sell to Nigerian people. But when it has to do with education that will shape this country, they will say they don’t have money.
“They are increasing their tour allowances. You know they move around all over the world. You saw the wife of the president celebrating their birthday in Dubai and all the governors’ wives were there with their aides.
“They have hundreds of millions of naira for their children (‘s education) in the UK; they have money, government money. But to fund education, they don’t have money.
“We have told them they either close down the universities and prepare for youths or lets for once solve this problem and move ahead so that we start having foreign students who will pay in dollars as school fees, foreign lecturers will come here to teach; so that we don’t pay this huge amount we are using to move Nigerian students from Ukraine to Nigeria.
“They had money to go and move the children of the rich from Ukraine. They spent over $8m, but to fund Nigerian universities, they don’t have money. It is not true, they have money they are just playing games.
“The children of the poor will suffer in Nigerian universities while their children will have good education outside the country. When they are through, they come back here and take the juicy jobs here, and keep lording it over the children of the poor. It’s a class issue. For us, the option is for them; they shut down all the universities and let all the children go and learn mechanics or they fund the universities.”
He also reacted to Ngige’s statement that the government was calling for renegotiation of the 2009 agreement it signed with ASUU.
Osodeke stated, “We are not signing any agreement or MoU with them. They should implement what they agreed upon 13 years ago. At that time, the exchange rate was one dollar to less than N100.00, but now, the exchange rate is one dollar to more than N500.00. Even the value of that money before we agreed in 2019 had already been eroded.
“We have finished renegotiation, but if they have gone back to their principals that there is an area we should look at, we will look at it, we are ready.
“We have finished the renegotiation. All the things we asked for were scientifically calculated. On what basis do they want to reduce them? ”
