Many Nigerians are divided over the Academic Staff Union of Universities‘ (ASUU) rejection of the N50 million intervention funds to end the ongoing strike.
ASUU on Saturday, June 11 rejected an initiative by Berekete Family radio for crowdfunding and the sum of N50million cash donated by Udom Emmanuel, the executive governor of Akwa Ibom State to call off the industrial action.
Franklin Anya, a parent and social critic believes that ASUU was right for rejecting the supposed intervention fund because it does not represent what the union stands for.
“ASUU represents the education system. And the union’s agitation is for the education system to work in a sustainable way. N50 million is not what ASUU is asking for?
“ASUU is asking for a systematic issue, a sustainable way of running the tertiary education system in Nigeria so that they won’t come back to the same issue over again.
“Crowdfunding is neither the solution to the union’s demands, IPPIS and UTAS are about having a payment platform that meets the needs of the system. If the lecturers are to be constantly attached to the apron of the government, the university system cannot run effectively in Nigeria.
“The Berekete radio intervention initiative is utterly uncalled for. For example, if the money is gotten, who would be the recipient? The government or ASUU? If ASUU should approve the crowdfunding, would Berekete radio be raising money for any time the need arises? It is purely not a sustainable approach to solving the problem,” he said.
For Boye Ogundele, an educationist, the problem with ASUU is a big one, because all the public workers are always looking for an avenue to steal.
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According to Ogundele, “ASUU’s rejection of the intervention fund is faceless and insensitive. At least if they know they are fighting for the masses they would have appreciated the effort of the organisers because they did it out of concern and love.
“We all know that 99percent of the union’s demands are personal, they too are looking for a way to cash out. The love of the children is not in them.
“On the part of the federal government, they are looking for a way to withdraw the university autonomy which would spell doom for all educational institutions in Nigeria because they will politicise everything and all you will see at the end will be round pegs in the round holes.”
Stanley Alaubi, a senior lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt does not see anything wrong with ASUU rejecting the intervention fund and crowdfunding initiative.
“A charity organisation does not run the university system. It is the onus of the government to fund federal universities. Any government that cannot fund its education set up by itself is a failed government. If the Nigerian government has failed they should speak up.
“Nigeria has all it takes to fund the university, but greed won’t allow its leaders. Can you imagine the rise in the price of crude oil all over the world and how much the nation makes on a daily basis? It would be wrong to seek an intervention fund from the wrong quarter.
“It may interest you to know that TetFund is the brainchild of ASUU, where 1percent of profit made by multinational companies are kept to fund university project but alas the government took it over because of the funds accrued over the years and still failed to sponsor existing universities,” he noted.
However, Oluchi Chukwuma-Ojei, a teacher sees the action of the lecturers by rejecting the intervention fund and crowdfunding to end the strike as an act of insensitivity and not being students centred.
“ASUU is obviously not students’ centred,” she said.
Oluwaseyi Ojo blamed the federal government for being insensitive to the plight of the lecturers.
“Our leaders are insensitive and lack integrity. How could a government that claimed to lack the funds to bail out the tertiary education system come out to pay N100million for a form per an individual presidential aspirant? Where did they get the money?” he said.
ASUU as a matter of fact has been on industrial action since February 14, when the union gave the federal government a 30 day warning strike notice to allow the government to address the union’s demands. At the expiration of the warning strike, ASUU rolled over the strike and even extended the rollover due to the impasse between the union and the federal government.
And in an effort to find a way out of the woods, Ahmad Isah, the founder and host of the Human Rights Radio 101.1 in Abuja had invited Emmanuel Osodeke, the national president of ASUU, and his team to explain to Nigerians the perennial problems and state why the union is still on strike.
Osodeke explained that the federal government is yet to meet the union’s demands, hence the strike is ongoing.
ASUU’s demands include among others, funding for the revitalisation of public universities, Earned Academic Allowances, University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS), and promotion arrears. Others are the renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FG Agreement and the inconsistency in the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS).
Osedeke disclosed that none of these demands had been met by the federal government. The ASUU president also said that the government had also refused to accept UTAS as the payment platform for ASUU even after it had been tested and passed with a score of 99.3 percent.
He however reiterated that the federal government should do the needful in order for students to return to school.
