Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has provided insight into the reasons behind the union’s continuous strikes.
Speaking on News Central’s Jasiri, Prof Osodeke mentioned university funding as the primary issue causing the union to embark on continuous strikes.
He said,” In 2012, when we were on strike, one of the issues that came up was the issue of funding. And we told the government that you need about 1.5 trillion Naira to bring our university up to date. But the government, they don’t believe us.
“And that government has set up a committee, known as Need Assessment Committee, to go around all Nigerian universities and look at what is there and what can be done.
“That committee went around and came out with an assessment report that resulted in this revitalisation fund. That report was so sad that even when the president presented it at the Federal Executive Council, everybody was shocked at the rate of Nigerian universities.
He highlighted the poor learning conditions that students in federal universities are subjected to.
“That is one of the first-generation universities. They were using stoves as bungee burners. In many laboratories, students were taking lectures, sitting on bare floors or hanging on windows, and so forth and so on. And based on that, we all agreed.
“That president, we had a meeting with him, President Goodluck Jonathan, and agreed that the federal government should release N1.3 trillion to upgrade all these facilities.
He explained further that the Nigerian government agreed to disburse 200 billion Naira annually to the Nigerian universities because the lump sum of N1.3 trillion could not be disbursed at once.
“And because they cannot release that money in one full sweep, what they agreed was that every year they would release 200 billion Naira to the Nigerian universities. The first one was released. Go around Nigerian universities today, you will see the impact of that 200 billion Naira. And that was the last.”
Watch the full interview below.
