Govt’s Misplaced Priorities Bane Of Public-funded Universities – ASUU

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said misplaced priorities by the federal and state governments retards the progress of public-founded universities and caused the wave of fee hikes without inputs of the victims.

National president of the union, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, stated this yesterday while addressing newsmen in Umuahia, Abia State, on the outcome of the union’s National Executive Council meeting held in Bayelsa State.

“This press conference is intended to update Nigerians on developments since the suspension of our last national strike on Friday 14th October, 2022 and our engagements with the current administration since its inception,” he said.

He accused the governments of making huge budgetary allocations for items and areas that benefit them directly at the detriment of the education sector, universities, students, parents, guardians and society.

Osodeke alleged that the federal government failed to keep faith with the union’s Memorandum of Understanding in 2013 which provided for N1.3 trillion over a period of six years for the universities.

He added that had if not been for the failure, many universities would have been restored to a level at which they could attract foreign students and become renowned for cutting-edge and transformative research.

“We challenge the Tinubu administration to urgently initiate moves to conduct another needs assessment exercise to empirically verify our call for massive intervention in our public universities,” he said.

While noting that it was the government’s response to a similar challenge in 2012 that gave rise to the aggregate of N1.3 trillion which the government has since abrogated, he enumerated issues the council frowned at during the meeting.

They include the federal government’s failure to address the union’s demand for negotiated salary, withheld salary, non-payment of earned academic allowances and illegal dissolution of university governing councils, among others.