Nigerian universities have been buffeted with agonising months of
strikes for over a decade and until now, the article is pretty much the
identical. Government is still reluctant to give the education part a
shot in the arm.
learned Staff amalgamation of Universities, ASUU, has been on strike
since June 30 and has dialogued with FG over 11 times, albeit,
inconclusively.
This highlights the lukewarm posture of government in the direction
of the striking lecturers and from ASUU’s body dialect and utterances,
they have made it abundantly clear to any person who cares to listen
that they are prepared to extend the strike even if it takes years,
asserting that their conclusion was adequately taken in a bid to
revitalise Nigerian universities.
Why Federal Government Does Not Want ASUU Strike To End
The bone of contention is lucid in itself. An affirmation was reached
in 2009 that all government universities would require a total sum of
N1.5 trillion disperse over three years (2009-2011) to address the rot
and decay in the universities.
But, in the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, marked between the
union and the government in 2012, FG determined to continue the gesture
to encompass both government and state universities. After the 2012
reconsider, it was agreed that rather than of N1.5 trillion, FG would
infuse a total of N1.3 trillion into the universities over four years.
Almost four years down the line, FG has refused to fulfill its end of
the cut-rate. Rather than reply to the matters increased by the
amalgamation that would double-check fast tenacity to the imbroglio,
government boycotted ASUU to summon a gathering with Pro-Chancellors and
Vice-Chancellors of universities, proposing them N130 billion with a
equivalent alignment to lecturers to resume work directly.
But the amalgamation is asserting that by throwing money at
universities in that kind, government has rejected the 2009 affirmation
it went into freely with the union and the 2012 MoU. ASUU is not making
any fresh demand but has maintained that the 2009 affirmation must be
respected.
It is silly that government agents were cited as saying ASUU’s N1.3
trillion demand is adept of closing down the homeland. No. Their
insatiable and rapacious greed will.
The private jets in the presidential fleet can go by plane, centenary
celebrations is a main concern to government, there’s sufficient cash
to pay humongous wages and allowances to government legislators and
other political agency holders, enough to forfeit to oil grant thieves,
enough to pay militants false amnesty cheques and phantom contracts
while they extend to bunker our crude oil like not ever before, there’s
sufficient cash to plead Boko Haram to accept amnesty but there is no
cash for regulation abiding Nigerian students who desire to eke out a
living using university education as a pacing stone. It is this kind of
attitude from the government that provokes the use of brute force by
some local assemblies to appeal government’s vigilance to their
difficulties.
Government will not assertion it has no money to fulfill this
affirmation. A homeland with 109 senators earning about N19.6 billion a
year, while N51.8 billion is spent on members of House of
Representatives for the identical time span, totaling N71.4 billion.
This addition, N71.4 billion, comprises 17.8 per cent of the N400bn
annual intervention finance suggested by the managing group on Needs
evaluation of Nigerian Universities. Surely, our lecturers and
universities where they were taught warrant more.
When we converse of heath care, proceedvernment authorized and the
ruling elite proceed abroad for medical vigilance; we converse of awful
streets, they go by plane personal jets; we converse of power, they run
their homes on 24-7 alternate electrical energy source; now we’re
talking learning, their wards are in some of the best universities
abroad. There is no way the myriad of problems bedeviling the homeland
can be undertook if the political elite don’t feel the pangs.
That Mr. leader has taken out time from his ‘busy’ schedule to
certainly parley with the warring factions of his party, PDP, but has
not ever sat down with ASUU constituents to journal a course for
Nigeria’s managers of tomorrow apparently shows his main concerns. Party
activities and following perceived foes of his 2015 ambition round with
apparatus of state are far more significant things than angling over
rearwards to pander to the claims of the hitting lecturers.
But then, government should take into cognisance the fact that, the
longer the students remain at dwelling, possibilities are that they will
be lured into social vices. The aftermath can be catastrophic for the
state.
There are misplaced calls in some quarters for ASUU to be
‘reasonable’, accept FG’s offer and come back to school rooms. Others
lambast them for being selfish and unpatriotic. It is unfortunate that
Nigerians are habitually looking for quick rectify answers to monumental
difficulties. Less endowed nations like Ghana, Botswana and Angola are
making giant paces on all fronts because the citizenry have at one point
or the other asserted that the needful be done. Here, any thing hurled
at us is accepted with glee.
We should get our priorities right as a homeland. Government should
constrain its own excesses. learning should be given the vigilance it
deserves. learning of the citizenry should not be subjected to any form
of discussion. Negotiating the learning of our leaders of tomorrow is
more or less negotiating the future of the homeland.
Government deliberately likes the strike to linger, first, to
blackmail the disagreement. There have been some unsavoury comments from
the government’s split up of the negotiation table that ASUU has been
infiltrated by moles from the disagreement, alleging that the strike has
lingered to gain political capital. That is how reduced this government
can stoop. We have glimpsed it before. It is an irresponsible and
shameless government, one that needs integrity and honesty that will
accuse the opposition for all its anguish. It is unbecoming for the
government of the day to continue to heap its malfunction on the landing
of the disagreement and ASUU strike is just another avenue to decorate
the opposition black before the public.
Second, is to send a powerful signal to other unions who might be
considering alike activity to have a rethink. possibly, government
conceives by acceding to ASUU’s claims, other work unions might toe the
identical route at the smallest excuse.
Third, the supreme aim of government is to decorate a bad image of
the association to Nigerians, at smallest, for as long as the strike
perseveres. The administrator Gabriel Suswan-led NEEDS Report
Implementation managing group mediating on behalf of the government has
regrettably taken a place that is untrue, dishonest, and calculated to
misinform the public and cause disaffection in the direction of the
union.
Rather than request cheap attractiveness, Governor Suswan and the
rest of the FG group should tow the part of respect by inquiring
leader Goodluck Jonathan to respect the 2009 agreement. There’s no
cornerstone for rotating the heat on ASUU and the crusade of calumny.
It calls for concern, that same government that has always maintained
that ‘our graduates are unemployable’ and our universities churn out
‘half-baked graduates’ find it difficult to commit the much required
funds to revamp the universities.
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supporting nice? his sentence construction is appalling for an undergraduate if he is one. lets build the educational sector with constructive criticism