Govt Can Raise N4 Trillion For Subsidy But Not N200 Billion For Universities – ASUU

The President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Emmanuel Osodeke, has criticized the government for not prioritizing the education sector in its affairs.

Osodeke said the government is able to raise N4 trillion to address fuel subsidy in the nation but is unable to raise N200 billion to revamp Nigerian varsities to world standards.

He said this while speaking during a Channels Television programme, where he noted that the government shelled more than N200 billion to fund the homegrown school feeding programme but failed to address the demands of striking university lecturers.

“It is always funny that the government cannot raise N200 billion to revamp all Nigeria’s universities annually, to world standards. The same government can raise N4 trillion for fuel subsidy.

“You can raise a budget to make N4 trillion for subsidy in a year, but you cannot raise N200bn to fund your education where you don’t have the infrastructure. You can spend N228bn to feed children in primary or secondary schools but you cannot raise this fund for your university; it is an issue of priority. That is the problem,” he said.

Osodeke said the government should take N200 billion out of the N4 trillion earmarked for fuel subsidy to address the needs of the Union and Nigerian varsities in general.

“If you remove N200bn from N4trillion to fund your universities, you still have N3.8trillion for fuel subsidy.

“We don’t believe there is a fuel subsidy. There is no country where you have the crude intelligentsia. You have been importing fuel for the past 20 years; something is ongoing. No country in the world will do that. In the 60s, we built four refineries, and between 1999 and now, we cannot build one or service the ones we had,” he said.

ASUU had commenced a warning strike on February 14, 2022, to intensify its demands which include the renegotiation of its 2009 agreement with the government and deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) to replace the Federal Government’s Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

On March 14th, the Union extended the strike by two months, until May 14th, indicating that the strike is not a fresh one but rather a continuation of the 10-month strike which began in March 2020 and was suspended on December 23, 2020.

ASUU President, Emmanuel Osodeke, had told THE WHISTLER in an interview that the strike might be extended by 4 months if the government should fail to meet the union’s demands before the proposed end of the current one.

The Federal Government had met with ASUU for the first time since they commenced the strike on April 11th, where the Minister for Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, said he was working to see that all issues are resolved amicably.

Other demands by ASUU include payment of earned academic allowances, funds for the revitalization of public universities, promotion arrears, and poor funding of state universities.

ASUU has also insisted on the release of the reports of the government’s visitation panels to federal universities and regular payment of salary to lecturers.