Nigerian University Students Paying Price To Ensure Quality Education – ASUU
ASUU has said that Nigerian university students are paying the price to ensure quality education as the union appeal over 3-month-old strike.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has said that the N34 billion released by the Nigerian government for payment of minimum wage consequential adjustment was not part of the union’s demands.
The union said university students were paying the price to ensure the provision of quality education in the country.
The National President of the Union, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke who made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Ota, affirmed that the government had not attended to their demands, so the strike would not be called off.
The ASUU President who admitted that the students were suffering for Nigeria’s future and education system, sympathised with the university students over the prolonged strike.
He asserted that the students were not being punished but paying the price to ensure that Nigeria had a good education system.
“ASUU sympathises with them, and we believe that with what is going on, if we continue with the struggle, we will have an education system where Nigerian students will have the same lecture rooms as their foreign counterparts,” he added.
Osodeke stressed that there was no need to call off the strike when the Nigerian Government had not attended to their demands.
He, therefore, called on the Nigerian Government to do the needful as the N34 billion released was not part of their demands.
ASUU had embarked on a four-week warning strike on February 14 to press home its demands, with the prominent ones being the renegotiation of the ASUU/FG 2009 agreement and the sustainability of the university autonomy by deploying UTAS to replace the government-imposed IPPIS.
Other demands include the release of the reports of visitation panels to federal universities, distortions in salary payment challenges, funding for revitalisation of public universities, earned academic allowance, poor funding of state universities and promotion arrears.
On March 14, the association extended the strike action by another two months to afford the government more time to address all of its demands.
The union in a statement by its President, Prof. Osodeke, at the expiration of the strike action, said it would be extending the ongoing strike by another 12 weeks.
One bone of contention for the striking lecturers is the non-payment of university revitalisation funds, which amounts to about N1.1 trillion.
“The Federal Government has been grossly mishandling the crisis, fielding incompetent, arrogant ministers, and treating the education sector with disdain. It has to act quickly to end the impasse, fulfil its obligations and persuade the dons to resume work immediately,” Osodeke, ASUU leader, had said.
