Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to redirect some of the funds earmarked for the presidency and National Assembly expenditure in the 2022 budget to meet the demands by Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
SERAP also urged President Buhari to recover missing N105.7 billion of public funds from ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to fund the country’s public tertiary institutions, improve the welfare of staff members, and ensure that the striking lecturers return to class without further delay.
The group insisted that pending the recovery of the missing public funds, the government should redirect some of the presidency’s budget of N3.6 billion on feeding and travels, and the N134 billion allocated to the National Assembly in the 2022 budget to meet the demands of ASUU.
SERAP, which made the suggestion in an open letter dated July 2, 2022 and signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, further asked the President to send to the National Assembly a fresh supplementary appropriation bill, which reflects the proposed redirected budget, for its approval.
It also maintained that if the government meets the demands by ASUU it would confront the persistent and widening inequality in educational opportunity, and promote equal protection for poor Nigerian children.
SERAP states in the letter, “The apparent failure by your government to agree with the reasonable demands by ASUU, implement the good faith agreement with the union and to satisfactorily resolve the issues has kept poor Nigerian children at home while the children of the country’s politicians attend private schools.”
“Meeting ASUU demands would also ensure protection against the harms of discrimination and educational deprivation.
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“The poor treatment of Nigerian children in the country’s public tertiary institutions is inconsistent and incompatible with the Nigerian Constitution and the country’s international human rights obligations.
“Widening inequalities in the area of education bear all the more dramatic consequences given the importance of education, as an empowering right, in giving the possibility to all to explore and realise their potential,” the organisation said.
SERAP also maintained that inequalities in education have a rolling effect, leading to even more and continued inequalities in the future.
“Apart from being a right in itself, the right to education is also an enabling right. Education creates the ‘voice’ through which rights can be claimed and protected, and without education people lack the capacity to achieve valuable functioning as part of the living.
“If people have access to education they can develop the skills, capacity and confidence to secure other rights. Education gives people the ability to access information detailing the range of rights that they hold, and government’s obligations.
“We would be grateful if the recommended measures are taken within seven days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter. If we have not heard from you by then, SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions to compel your government to comply with our request in the public interest.
“Recovering the missing N105.7bn of public funds and redirecting the funds, as well as some parts of the presidency and National Assembly budgets to meet the demands by ASUU would end the protracted negotiations between ASUU and the Federal Government and improve access of poor children to education,” SERAP stated.
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