From Asuu : Government cannot claim it has no money to fulfill this agreement. A country with 109 senators earning about N19.6 billion a year, while N51.8 billion is spent on members of House of Representatives for the same period, totaling N71.4 billion. This sum, N71.4 billion, represents 17.8 per cent of the N400bn yearly intervention fund recommended by the Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities. Surely, our lecturers and universities where they were trained deserve more. When we talk of heath care, government official and the ruling elite go abroad for medical attention; we talk bad roads, they fly private jets; we talk power, they run their homes on 24-7 alternative electricity source; now we’re talking Education, their wards are in some of the best universities abroad. There is no way the myriad of problems bedeviling the country can be tackled if the political elite don’t feel the pangs. That Mr President has taken out time from his ‘busy’ schedule to constantly parley with the warring factions of his party, PDP, but has never sat down with ASUU members to chart a course for Nigeria’s leaders of tomorrow clearly shows his priorities. Party affairs and chasing perceived enemies of his 2015 ambition around with apparatus of state are far more important things than bending over backwards to pander to the demands of the striking lecturers. But then, government must take into cognisance the fact that, the longer the students remain at home, chances are that they will be lured into social vices. The aftermath can be disastrous for the state. There are misplaced calls in the some quarters for ASUU to be ‘reasonable’, accept FG’s offer and return to classrooms. Others lambast them for being self-centered and unpatriotic. It is unfortunate that Nigerians are always looking for quick fix solutions to monumental problems. Less endowed countries like Ghana, Botswana and Angola are making giant strides on all fronts because the citizenry have at one point or the other insisted that the needful be done. Here, anything thrown at us is accepted with glee. We must get our priorities right as a country. Government must curb its own excesses. Education must be given the attention it deserves. Education of the citizenry should not be subjected to any form of Negotiation. Negotiating the education of our leaders of tomorrow is more or less negotiating the future of the country. Government deliberately wants the strike to linger, first, to blackmail the opposition. There have been several unsavoury comments from the government’s divide of the negotiation table that ASUU has been infiltrated by moles from the opposition, alleging that the strike has lingered to gain political capital. That is how low this government can stoop. We have seen it before. It is an irresponsible and shameless government, one that lacks integrity and honesty that will blame the opposition for all its woes. It is unbecoming for the government of the day to continue to heap its failure on the doorstep of the opposition and ASUU strike is just another avenue to paint the opposition black before the public. Second, is to send a strong signal to other unions who might be contemplating similar action to have a rethink. Perhaps, government thinks by acceding to ASUU’s demands, other Labour unions might toe the same path at the slightest excuse. Third, the ultimate aim of government is to paint a bad image of the association to Nigerians, at least, for as long as the strike persists. The Governor Suswan-led NEEDS Report Implementation Committee mediating on behalf of the government has unfortunately taken a position that is false, dishonest, and calculated to misinform the public and cause disaffection towards the union. Rather than seek cheap popularity, Governor Suswan and the rest of the FG team should tow the part of honour by asking President Goodluck Jonathan to honour the 2009 agreement. There’s no basis for turning the heat on ASUU and the campaign of calumny. It calls for worry, 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 needed funds to revamp the universities.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 06:04:45 +0000
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