This Day (Lagos)
Uchechukwu Nnaike
7 July 2009
Lagos — The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has condemned the decision of members of the senate to divert N 6.2 billion from the budget allocated to education and health in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to road construction, saying that it showed that the country had misplaced priority.
The National President, Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie, who said on behalf of the union in Lagos, said the move was "a clear manifestation of government's insensitivity and lack of commitment to education. It also shows lack of urgency on the part of government at resolving the present impasse."
He also refuted the claim by the Minister of Information and Communication, Prof. Dora Akunyili at the end of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting last week that the Federal Government had met three, out of the union's four demands and that the only matter left was the resolution of the salaries demanded by the union.
He described the claim as a bundle of misinformation and a calculated attempt to trivialise the essence and spirit of the negotiation that lasted two and a half years. "When I hear that government has met three out of the four, I get so upset. We said the issues are funding of the university, massive, immediate and sustained funding. In Mathematics, if something is below the zero point, we say it is negative, before it can become positive, it must return from the negative to the zero line. What we are asking for is to return to the zero line for a take off, we are below the zero line."
He also described the minister's claim that the union was demanding 109 percent pay rise as a mischief calculated to mislead the Nigerian people, saying, "the union never asked for a 109 percent pay rise, "what the negotiation committee agreed on was to pay Nigerian academics emoluments equivalent to the average of those paid to academics in those African countries that raid our country for academics. This average was determined empirically and scientifically."
According to him, government was reluctant to pay the African average was based on its claim that those countries that pay their academics well have fewer universities and fewer lecturers, "government and its agents have not stated that our country is less endowed than those countries the universities were not established by ASUU, we believe that they were established because of the need for them."
Awuzie alleged that government was insensitive to the sector because "most of those who pilot the affairs of this country have their children in Europe and America . They care less about the education of children of the underprivileged and the masses of this nation." He called for a law that would prevent people in authority to send their children abroad for schooling.
On the claims that the strike had been called off, he said the National Executive Council (NEC) of the union had not met and deliberated, saying that these must be done before the strike would be called off.
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