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Emma Sunday, Port Harcourt
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has accused the Federal Government of allegedly instigating a fresh crisis in public universities.
The Port Harcourt Zone of ASUU made the accusation during a press conference at the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), over the weekend.
Reading a press statement on behalf of the union, the Port Harcourt Zonal Coordinator, of ASUU, Comrade Stanley Ogoun, accused the government of systematically crippling and weakening public universities in the country to assert it’s economic dominance.
Ogoun also accused the Nigerian ruling class of working tirelessly to ensure a complete collapse of the public university in order to pave way for the growth of private universities.
He urged Nigerians to prevail on the Federal Government to prioritize education as a proven part to national development.
He said, “As part of our union’s concerted efforts towards mitigating the deliberate provocation by governments across board to proceed on an industrial action, we are calling on all well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on governments at the federal and state levels to prioritize education as the proven path to national development.
“Through acts of deliberate delay
and nonchalance, government is fanning the ambers of crisis in the public university system.
“From the insincere utterances of government to deliberate connivance between the political elites and select bureaucrats, the public university space is being emasculated and crippled to enact an overall conquest, towards feeding their primitive and compulsive economic dominance of all sectors.
“From systematic onslaught on the public university space through well-crafted obnoxious and retrogressive policies to deliberate neglect, it has become apparent that the Nigerian ruling class is working relentlessly towards ensuring a total collapse of the public university system, with a view to expanding the frontiers of its profiteering escapade.”
The ASUU leader singled out the Chief of Staff to the president, Femi Gbajabiamila, accusing him of frustrating efforts by the union to have the unsettled issues between the union and government resolved with the president, despite him (Femi) promising to ensure the all pending issues were resolved when he was the Speaker, House of reps.
“The the former House of Reps Speaker who is now a strong pillar in the current government has suddenly become incapacitated in resolving the matters he so taunted to resolve as archived in the media space. He has deliberately decided not to use his position and executive powers (which he claimed he didn’t have then) towards resolving the pending issues.
“Efforts at seeing Mr. President to resolve the issues have been blocked by him; meanwhile, Mr. President has played host and is still playing host to several non-consequential visits as clearly seen in the public space.”
He regretted the failure of President Tinubu to back up his promise of ending frequent strikes in the university system with conscious steps and efforts towards achieving that.
“A clear evidence is the poor budgetary allocation to education in the 2024 annual budget, for which a similar trend is cascaded down the state levels. For instance, a government that pronounced N15 trillion as contract sum for a project that was not competitively bided for, is claiming not to have funds (amounting to less than 7% of the N15 trillion) to commit to addressing the decay in all the public universities. What a tragedy!!”
Comrade Ogoun further disclosed that, “Our Conditions of Service was last reviewed in 2009. The last attempt after several overtures to government was scuttled by the enemies of the Nigerian State led by the then labour Minister, Chris Ngige and his allies, whose primary interest remains the emasculation of the public space, towards feeding their quest for primitive and compulsive accumulation of our common wealth for their immediate families.”
He however demanded that the government should as a matter of priority; increase budgetary allocation to education at all levels and to stop the systematic destruction of the public university system.”
He also demanded that the government should respect the principle of collective bargain, by meeting with the union’s leadership towards addressing the poor conditions of service, exacerbated further by the current economic realities; release the fund for revitalisation of our public universities captured under ‘service-wide vote’ in the 2023 budget;
Furthermore, he called on the government to pay the outstanding Earned Academic Allowance (EAA); and as well amend the NUC act to halt the proliferation of public universities without adequate funding of the existing ones; and release the 31/2 months withheld salaries, in line with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention.
He said, “There is a consensus amongst these seen and unseen anti-progressive hands to exterminate public universities, which they believe constitutes an impediment to their complete economic conquest of the country’s education space. Hence, the ongoing systematically
choreographed actions tailored at complete annihilation of public universities.
Nigerians should hold government accountable for any other disruption in the public university system.
“We challenge the government to be alive to her responsibilities towards halting the massive decay in the Nigerian public university space and see if there will be any industrial action.
Let it be known that the goal of saving the public university system from an imminent government-orchestrated extinction, should be the business of all true citizens of Nigeria.
If the ordinary Nigerian fails to see this as a common battle, we should all be prepared to accept the reality that university education would soon be an elitist exclusivity.
