The National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Emmanuel Osodeke, has revealed how the union, during its last negotiations, rejected Federal Government’s plan to increase school fees of all university students to N1m.

He said government’s plan was to open an education bank and give each student a loan of N1m annually at five per cent interest rate to sponsor themselves in school and then pay back when they graduate and start working.

Osodeke stated this while answering questions from participants at a one-day ‘state of the nation summit’ organised for ASUU members by the Bauchi zone of the union.

He said, “At the last negotiation, the first thing they told us was that we should negotiate for our allowances and salaries but we said no, let’s discuss funding first. When we know how much you’re going to pay, then we can negotiate salary. Reluctantly, they went on. “Then, they raised another issue which was why we delayed for four years, that students must pay N1m as school fees every year; the government said 70 per cent will be paid to the university while the student keeps 30 per cent.

“We asked them where and how the students would source the money and they told us not to worry. They said they would open an education bank and the students would go there and take the N1m every year. “And by the time you are graduating, you would have been owing N5m or N6m. If it takes you 20 years to get a job, that five per cent interest on that loan would be building. “We said we will never allow that, and that was why we went on strike and we delayed in calling off the strike.

“If we had accepted that students pay N1m as school fees, they would have increased our pay easily and who would the public and the students blame? It is ASUU.” Osodeke said that if they had accepted the offer, people would have accused them of fighting for their personal interests and not the collective good of Nigerians.

othermen:
Folks don’t understand that ASUU is perhaps the last champion of the masses.

A manager in many of the parastatals earn more than a professor in Nigeria public universities.

A polytechnic lecturer earns more than their counterparts in Nigeria public universities.
The polytechnic lecturer who is not a PhD holder earns more than some university lecturers with even post PhD qualifications.

College of Education lecturers earn more than lecturers in Nigeria public universities.

A graduate assistant in many universities abroad earn more than Nigeria public universities senior lecturers.

Of coz, in some schools, some of the Nigeria public universities lecturers have resorted to their own exploitation of students by selling course materials or making students buy books directly from them. In Some universities lecturers even abandoned teaching and invested more time in seeking grants for research or trying to become a consultant at the expense of their primary responsibility.

It was ASUU’s mandate to rebuke this, and in several universities especially the ones in the Southwest, they were able to get the university administration to issue a memo that lecturers not sell handouts or books to students. (This is very well enforced in Uni Ibadan)

You can check the lecturers salaries online.

The lecturers in Nigeria public universities have for years yearned for their earned allowances, and many have died without receiving it. If you know a Nigeria public university lecturer, then you would know there is no luxury there. They are unappreciated lots. Those that have remained solely fixed on their call, retire into a basic average livelihood, where the value of their pensions cannot longer afford the necessities they need.

ASUU just wants universities to be funded, so that they can have functional laboratories and equipment to convey practical knowledge.

This, has always been on the forefront of ASUU’s struggle, never members welfare.

Ask those that have apartments, they prefer to rent it out to a banker than to a lecturer in Nigeria public universities. Yet the lecturer is expected to do research in their offices where they don’t even have a functional bathroom with water supply or an office properly fitted. You have seen this, you have been to a lecturers office, was the air conditioning functional? Was there power? Didn’t you wonder how they survived in such heat, surrounded by books… yet they stay awake and give their lives, with many retiring into diseases and illnesses because of the hazards that comes with the profession.

The minds that should be retained in the academics observing the situation, prefer anywhere else than the position. Yet, some others are just only passionate about conveying knowledge and supplying the society with adequate minds and capable hands but they become the victim of your vitriol when they ask that their laboratory be equipped so students can be engaged in quality researches.

The child of the politicians that you grovel at their feet, get an education outside the country at the cost of what will more than equip the laboratory or enhance the learning facilities such as classroom. Your lecturers who cannot afford to send the child to such, have such children in the universities here, paying too with their time for the negligence and irresponsibility of the government.

Yet ASUU must capitulate to the ignorant ones, partial agreements or promises which are often never fulfilled is sufficient to suspend the struggle for the soul of Nigeria public education from those bent on ruining it.

hisgrace090:
So the number of suffering initiated by this careless govt never do?

iLoveYouToo:
Lies I smell but go on sir