Olusakin Babalola,Ibadan.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Sunday blames rising insecurity in the country as one of the consequences of government's failure to fund education and educate children of the masses.
Chairman ASUU, UI Professor Deji Omole who stated this on Sunday added that Nigeria’s future looks bleak with the attitude of her leaders to funding education.
According to Omole, the Union was unhappy with the 2019 budget percentage allocated to education which he said is about the worst in recent past.
The ASUU boss stated that the ruling class should see the rising insecurity as one of the consequences of failing educate the nation and attending to the welfare of the people.
The Union advised the Federal government to pay the N25billion Earned Academic Allowances it agreed to pay before the Union suspended its strike in February, 2019.
According to him, while government has released N20billion revitalization fund to Universities, no University has received the N25billion Earned Academic Allowances that government claimed it has released.
The Union says it expects the government to strictly follow the timelines allocated to meeting specific demands now that elections are over.
While noting that the Union is discussing renegotiation of its agreements with government, Omole stated that government should do the needful and implement all outstanding components of the Memorandum
“The N20billion for revatilisation has been sent to the universities. The issue of renegotiation has started. The issue of the payment of Earned Academic Allowances has not been done months after suspending the strike.
Government claimed it has released the money but it has not reached the University so that is why we are saying that in terms of the timelines, we can say we have not followed the MOA religiously.
But in a country where everything has to stop for elections, we assume government will do the needful and put issues in the MOA behind us by fully implementing it now that elections are over”
“We are not happy about 2019 budget to education. They presented this budget while we were on strike. We had assumed that a government that promised change will increase the budgetary allocation to education while the university staffs are on strike.
However, we realized that the budget was further cut down in terms of percentage allocated to education. This is about the worst in recent past. You can know that when you have such an attitude from people in Government who feel that they can achieve much without education, the future of that country is bleak.”
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