Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, the president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), criticized the Federal Government on Tuesday for failing to prioritize education in Nigeria, claiming that the sector’s problems won’t be solved until the ruling class is made to send their children to public schools.
ASUU has finished negotiations with the government and was only waiting for the ministers to sign the deal made with the university lecturers, according to Osodeke, who dismissed the President’s two-week ultimatum to ministers to halt the strike.
Osodeke recalled that ASUU gave the government six weeks following the negotiations. “That was on May 22nd, and now it’s July. In six weeks, we both agreed. Nothing happened after that expired. There are still two weeks left. It shouldn’t take two days from where we are, he said, if we are sincere and truly want to fix these issues.
The ASUU President continued by listing further occasions in which the government neglected to update the union or invite it to scheduled meetings in the ongoing negotiations.
Osodeke said that Buhari was misled by those briefing him on the matter in response to Buhari’s “enough is enough” pronouncement on the ASUU strike when governors in the ruling All Progressives Congress paid Sallah homage to the President in his Daura country house. “You’ll understand what the President is saying when people try to misinform him. You will see what he is saying when the Minister of Labor goes to misinform the President,” he warned.
The president of ASUU recalls how the administration continued to form committees after committee, but their suggestions remained vague.
The ASUU President claims that the African average should be used to compare the pay of lecturers in Nigeria. He claimed that if the compensation for academics in Nigeria wasn’t attractive enough, First Class graduates should be encouraged to teach in universities rather than “go to the banks or the NNPC.”
The president of ASUU also disputed the government’s assertion that it had paid all employees at universities the resulting minimum wage hike starting in 2019. He claimed it was a component of the issues with the payment of professors under the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, which ASUU has denounced.
The ASUU President offered this advice for the future: “The government should prioritize education as the country’s top priority.