We can’t meet ASUU’s demands now — FG

The Federal Government has appealed to the striking members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities to exercise restraint in their demands from the government.The Minister of Education , Adamu Adamu , said at a press conference in Abuja on Monday night ASUU’ s problems with the government began during the Umaru Yar ’ Adua administration in 2009 .

The minister said the Federal Government would have fulfilled its obligations to ASUU if international oil prices had not crashed after 2009 .

Adamu said previous administrations made promises to the union when the economy was buoyant .

He said the Federal Government provided an agreement in 2009 for funding of universities to the tune of N 1 . 3 tn over a period of six years .

Adamu said , “ The issues necessitating this strike date back to 2009 when the then government of the late President Umaru Yar ’ Adua signed an agreement with ASUU on the funding of federal universities . The agreement provided for funding of universities to the tune of N 1 . 3 tn over a period of six years . It is instructive to know that Nigeria was experiencing oil boom at that time. It was therefore expected that government would meet the terms of agreement .

“ However , international oil prices crashed in subsequent years , thereby throwing the country into an economic hardship . At the inception of this administration , the country ’ s economic fortunes worsened , nose -diving into a recession , with dire consequences on all sectors of the economy , including education .
“ We exited recession not too long ago , and we are just beginning to recover from the consequences of low oil prices , which are happily beginning to pick up . If this trend continues , definitely , the education sector will also improve .

“ Against this background , I want to appeal to all parents , students and in particular ASUU women and men to continue to exercise restraint in terms of their response to the plight of the education sector . We must also be mindful that there are other sectors with similar competing needs. ”

Lecturers in some of the universities downed tools on Monday , a situation which paralysed activities in the institutions .

ASUU said the government failed to implement at least three areas in their Memorandum of Action signed on September 14 , 2017 .
President of the union , Prof . Biodun Ogunyemi , told our correspondent that the grey areas included failure to carry out the Forensic Audit of the earned academic allowances of the lecturers since 2017 and the payment of only N 20 bn out of an agreed N 220 bn annually .

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