ASUU Gives FG 21-day Ultimatum to Address Outstanding Issues in Varsity Funding

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has issued a 21-day ultimatum to the Federal Government to promptly address the outstanding issues that have encumbered the development of Nigeria universities.

President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, handed down the ultimatum Wednesday during a press conference at the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike (MOUAU), Abia State.

He said that the notice for an impending showdown with government has become necessary following a comprehensive review of the outcomes of the union’s previous engagements with government.

Osodeke said that the National Executive Committee (NEC) of ASUU had, at its meeting held at the University of Ibadan between August 17 and 18, “received alarming reports of government’s failed promises”.

According to him, government has failed to address the lingering issues that caused the nationwide strike of last year, which led to the closure of public funded universities for nine months between February and October.

“Our union is worried that government appears fixated on its self-serving approach of legalistic and bureaucratic arm-twisting,” he said, adding that: “Our universities have been grappling with grim situation since the government-ASUU renegotiation was aborted in 2021.”

The ASUU president noted that nothing has changed on the continued poor funding of universities and education in general, adding that the union has remained consistent in advocating adequate funding of the nation’s universities and the education sector.

He explained that ASUU’s struggle for better funding of education was based on the fact that education plays a crucial role in national development being the catalyst for sustained development of other sectors of the economy.

Osodeke said that the Nigerian government has breached all international protocols on adequate funding of education, including Agenda 2063 and the Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA) 2016-2025.

He further lamented ASUU’s frustration with consistent budgetary allocation of between five and six per cent for education, well below the 15 – 20 per cent annual budgetary recommended by the United Nation’s Fund for Population Activities(UNFPA).

“The consequences are there for all to see. Our universities can no longer provide basic services such as uninterrupted power supply, pipe-borne water, and maintenance of clean surroundings to their communities,” he said.

ASUU called on the Federal Government to restart the abandoned renegotiation of the 2009 Agreement which, according to the union, was “unceremoniously terminated by agents of the Federal Government”. 

It specifically stated that the then  Labour Minister, Dr Chris Ngige, and his cohorts in the Buhari government frustrated the signing of the agreement.

“Since the truncation of the draft agreement, the Nigerian university system has continued to sink deeper and deeper into the abyss of arrested growth and underdevelopment,” the ASUU president said.

“For the umpteenth time. ASUU calls on the President Tinubu-led administration to immediately set in motion the process leading to the review and signing of the Nimi Briggs-led renegotiated draft agreement as a mark of goodwill and assured hope for Nigeria’s public universities.”

While reiterating its stand against the inclusion of the universities in the IPPIS, which it described as “corruption-ridden monster”, ASUU also kicked against funding of students loan with TETFUND.

Osodeke said that it remains a union’s irony that Nigeria could not adequately fund its education sector in spite of its abundant resources, adding that less resource-endowed nations are poaching the best brains from Nigeria.

He said that even in the dire situation facing the education sector and the general well being of the nation, the police class has continued with its profligacy and insensitive appropriation of resources to frivolities.

He said that the N150 billion spent on the purchase of a presidential plane was more than what ASUU is asking for, while the money used in renovating the residence of the vice-president was more than the amount needed by all the universities in the South-east.

The ASUU president insisted that government has no reason to treat the demands of the union with disdain, saying that political leaders were elected by the people and the money they control belongs to the people.