Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has suggested that the only way to preserve the future of Nigeria is for the Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government to properly fund education and sign the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement.
Speaking through the Chairman, University of Ibadan chapter, Professor Ayo Akinwole ASUU noted that the only way the Federal Government could stop the ongoing strike action embarked by the union is to fund education appropriately and signed the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement.
According to ASUU, the attitude of the president and his appointees to the strike since it started the ongoing strike over two months showed that they do not have a mind to liberate the poor children of the masses as well as giving them quality education, through the provision of infrastructure, proper funding and signing a new decent welfare package for ASUU members.
Akinwole, who called the attention of the Federal Government the high rate students are getting out of school, stated that funding education remains the best way to shape the minds of youths to constructive development of their society.
The ASUU boss stated that the union is afraid if there would be a country in the nearest future since “it seems more money is being pumped into security for war entrepreneurs to become millionaires and billionaires without addressing the causes of insurgency and terrorism.”
He enlightened that the ongoing ASUU strike, which started on February 14, 2022 is to force the government to implement outstanding 2009 agreements on revitalization funding, earned academic allowances, proliferation of universities and sign a re-negotiated agreement with the Union.
While government has stopped payment of salaries to striking lecturers, Akinwole pointed out that weaponizing hunger would not make the union to suspend the strike but energized the members “to fight to have a country and a future for the children of the poor from the traders of collective patrimony in government.”
“If those in government are smart, they should have seen evidences that pumping trillions of naira into fighting insecurity without getting result is as a result of not doing the right thing. If you fund education, the minds of the educated youths will be built to resist being used for criminality but since government has been irresponsive , funding war may have become another opportunity where some people are making millions. They don’t care about the increasing number of out of school children and they are not concerned about what facilities Nigerian children are exposed to. For ASUU, a smarter way of controlling growing insecurity and redirecting the minds of Nigerian youths to constructive and developmental activities is to build their human capacity and minds through purposeful funding of education by federal, State and local governments in Nigeria.”
