₦airaland Forum

[quote author=Hon. SuQ Ma'DIQ]I just liked your comment because of the last sentence. The people we even insult here most times hardly have time like us to be on internet. It doesnt matter where they are from. What matters most is for us to always criticize our leaders constructively. We can even use harsh words to drive home our points but not calling them names like that poster.
Most times when i see words like RETARDEEN, FVCKTARD, SLOWPOKE etc being used to refer to Mr President, i marvel at the level of decadence internet use has exposed us to. One thing is hiding behind all this funny and crazy sounding monickers insulting our leaders. Question is, can we really say things we say if suddenly we are all compelled to regularize our NL accounts with our real data?[/quote]Nothing wrong with someone lashing out angrily at one of the reasons why he has been at home for months. Only in Nigeria do you people see such crass indignities being heaped on your heads and you sheepishly swallow it all down with mantras like 'amicable dialogue' and 'constructive criticism'.

[quote author=Hon. SuQ Ma'DIQ]One thing is hiding behind all this funny and crazy sounding monickers insulting our leaders. Question is, can we really say things we say if suddenly we are all compelled to regularize our NL accounts with our real data?[/quote]Isn't this more an issue with freedom of speech and not on any misguided ideas on sparing the feelings of these porky elites that bleed us dry?

Billyonaire: She deserves those cars, she is one of the best performing Ministers in the Republic. It is under her management and control that the South East now have a functional International Airport. And we need more

It is also under her management and control that over 10 Airports have been remodelled.

I can only advise Stella Oduah to grow thick-skin. I am sure she knows that politics is not for the faint-hearted, Ngozi Okonjo has grown thick skin.

Stella grow thick-skin, we the relavant Nigerians are proud of you, all others can kiss my toes.

Keep up this sycophancy and you may just end up becoming the billionaire you've been fruitlessly trying to convince us all that you are.

Nigeria always has a place for morally bankrupt toadies. you'll fit right in

I love this!
Everytime this clown in NANS opens his mouth, it gives a textbook example of how the young are slowly being subverted into paid agents, propagandists and sycophants. From a closed door meeting with the generous Governor Suswam to hobnobbing with ministers, it's clear that this young man has seen where the bread is being buttered. He will emerge from this saga a rich man with lots of lucre .

Tax free, I might add

gregg2: “In as much as we sympathise with ASUU over the predicament that forced the industrial action, millions of Nigerian students are simply tired of staying at home and hence appeal to call it off and resume negotiations immediately”.

Will someone tell this NANS clown that the 'predicament' affects the students every bit as much as ASUU? Their personal allowances will be a cinch for the Government to approve. The big, 100lb gorilla in the room is a commitment from the Government to massively invest in the education sector to make our graduates 'fully baked'. Working labs, better classrooms, more salubrious hostels...these are some of the benefits ASUU is fighting for that he is calling an 'ASUU predicament'.

Abbycite: Here is d thing Prof, u can choose to say anything to justify ur ASUU claims but say it to urself. because it won't change d fact that 'we can't give what we don't have'.

Tell me, what figures are you privy to that you can boldly make this statement?

Even if the FG comes close to implementing UNESCO's recommendation and sets aside 20% (just shy of the 26% recommendation) of the budget for education, what happens to the remaining 80%? You seem adamant on fitting every single expenditure into that relatively small amount proposed to be set aside for intervention in the Educational sector.

[quote author=ig.chuka]Just listen to yourself carefully. until VCs come out to protect the interest of students which is their right to education, nobody can convince me that VCs are not members of ASUU. I hope you did not forget that benefits accrue to VCs in said agreement that ASUU wants FG to implement.[/quote]And how exactly is the VC supposed to 'protect the interest of the students' to your satisfaction? By offering to teach all the courses himself? By going on hunger strike? By engaging in fisticuffs with the ASUU members?
Pray, shed more light on this matter, good sir.

As far as I know, the earned allowances for lecturers the union is fighting for will not be paid to the VCs.... They don't lecture anymore, after all.
Can we agree that from your logic, students are then
ASUU members if they get any benefit from this strike (Eg infrastructural investment providing free wifi)?


[quote author=ig.chuka]From a business point of view, it is a waste of resources pumping money in universities, cos they do not generate enough income that can sustain them talkless of profit.
ASUU wants to get paid like their counterparts abroad, yet no patent to show, talkless of viable patents.
ASUU's main issue is character crises.
If a Civil engineering lecturer cannot take his students to an ongoing road construction site in campus and explain that part of the course, no amount of money given by the FG will do that, this applies to other lecturers.
FG does owe anybody sponsorship of any university.[/quote]I take it you'd scrap free primary education, federal government schools, free health care initiatives etc because they do not generate profit?
Smh

Already sold

Guys,
Selling off this Canon T4i DSLR. Bought it last year, used just once before I decided it was way too complex for my needs

It's only ever been used once so it's like new. Comes with an 18-55 kit lens and a carry bag.

Price? 80k (much cheaper than market price)

Let me know here (or mail me at priyeandroid@gmail.com) if you're interested

[quote author=ig.chuka]As if the VC is not a member of ASUU.[/quote]https://mrwgifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Now-Comes-The-Part-Where-We-Throw-Our-Heads-Back-In-Laughter-In-George-Of-The-Jungle.gif

I really could have used this gif for nearly everything else in your post, but this part about the VCs stood out

[quote author=ig.chuka]You are the most sincere Lecturer, i have come across in recent times. Thank you for saying the simple truth.[/quote]he is the 'most sincere Lecturer' and his words are the 'simple truth' because he says something you agree with?

'Earned allowance' is money that was agreed up and promised them that has not yet been paid. As Prof.femi says, there are no salary increment components in their present demands. Why would a self-proclaimed 'ASUU member' not know this and say they are 'greedy'?
.

Anyway, all this is immaterial. The big stumbling block in the current Strike negotiation still remains the massive cash Infusion into the Universities that ASUU demands (as agreed in the 2009 agreement). That cash surge isn't going to ASUU (last i checked, the VCs and the Bursars handle the finances) so I see no reason for 'greed' to be put forward as a reason for this impasse.

Just my 2 cents.

4 Play: The above clarification of your point is a distinction without a difference. The import of your post is that someone ought to be paid more because someone else, in an entirely unrelated sector albeit perceived as less prestigious, is paid more. Whether being paid more results in wage parity is immaterial.

I don't want to turn the debate into an overly wonkish discussion but a few obvious points need to be made. A top notch engineer wishing to work in his field has 2 main options: work as an academic or an engineer in the public/private sector. If your friend didn't like the former he could have taken up the latter option. Without being privy to his particular circumstances, it would be reasonable to assume he couldn't find an engineering job attractive enough for him compared with being a cashier. If the assumption is correct, it belies the argument that funding for universities ought to be dramatically increased when the graduates can't find decent jobs in their chosen fields. Or is the thinking that increasing the supply or quality of graduates would increase the availability of graduates jobs? This is not to say that less graduates are good but that demands for more state funding requires a realistic assessment of what society gains from increased funding of a particular sector, in this case the university sector, over another. Which brings me to your second point.



I agree that Nigeria needs to spend more on education and I have always advocated for free education up to the conclusion of secondary school. If you take ASUU demands which I understand to be spending of 1.3 trillion on universities over 4 years the annual cost, 425bn Naira, of which will be about 8.5% of Nigeria's 4.9 trillion Naira 2013 budget. Economists agree that primary education, followed by secondary education, provide more returns to society than university education therefore it follows that both must each be accorded greater priority than university education.

So how would Nigeria fund primary and secondary education if universities get at least 425bn Naira each year? More specifically, where would you cut more money from? The obvious candidate is fuel subsidy but most Nigerians including ASUU campaigned for its retention at previous levels. With a subsidy expenditure at least 43% higher than health and education combined, it means that Nigerians including university lecturers value cheaper fuel more than good health and education put together. The usual populist retort is to point to the Aso Rock food budget, legislators' wages or militants income but scrapping all these in their entirety, apart from being politically unfeasible, won't go far to meet our education needs or just ASUU's demands.

Apart from education, what about health which I think should be free for at least infants. Why spend an additional 425bn Naira per year on just universities when we have one of the world's highest rates of infant mortality (850,000 thousand dead in the last year, a mortality figure which will compete with the Biafra war casualty figures)? Is it right that our lecturers cannot subsist on a starting wage of 800,000 Naira per year, the figure could be higher, when we are facing a holocaust because of poor health facilities?

What about our infrastructure in general, investment in which is needed to grow the economy so as to provide jobs for university graduates and tax revenue to fund society's needs including the much revered universities? Is the present imbalance between recurrent and capital expenditures in favour of the former not understood as making economic growth grind to snail pace, thereby jeopardising future university funding? If increasing public sector wages were a path to development, Nigerians will be one of the richest people on earth. Compare a civil servant's wage today to 15 years ago, minimum wage has gone from 800 Naira per month to 18,000 Naira. This is a death spiral as failing to address the country's economic capacity will lead to a decline in living standards as the cost of living rises faster than wage increases. Fewer business investments due to poor infrastructure means that we have to import a lot more of what we consume but our ability to import is dictated by the exchange rates which is gradually depreciating as the supply of foreign currency, dictated by the influx of foreign investments and foreign export revenues, cannot keep up with demand. Simply yanking up public sector wages without addressing adequately our infrastructure investment needs is long term st-upid.

For me the numbers don't add up. ASUU's demands simply cannot be met within current budgetary environment which ignores the trade offs that meeting their demands entail. The populist retort is to claim that we can meet ASUU's demands if corruption is reduced. Those anyone seriously think that the extra funding to meet ASUU's demands will come from the portion of money stolen by politicians and not from the portion allocated to things like capital expenditure?

You make sound arguments as to why you think we cannot meet the 26% UNESCO recommendation for education. Currently we stand at around 8.7% of the budget. Throwing in an additional 8.5% pushes that up to around 17%. Is this increment supposed to be a deal breaker? As it stands, of the N400+ billion in the 2013 budget for Education, only around N60bn is reserved for Capital Expenditures. This is not a sustainable development at all!

4 Play: For me the numbers don't add up. ASUU's demands simply cannot be met within current budgetary environment which ignores the trade offs that meeting their demands entail. The populist retort is to claim that we can meet ASUU's demands if corruption is reduced. Those anyone seriously think that the extra funding to meet ASUU's demands will come from the portion of money stolen by politicians and not from the portion allocated to things like capital expenditure?

I will defer to you on matters of Economics . It is not my forte, afterall. But there are still significant funds to be mopped up from a more vigorous sanitization of the fuel subsidy payments, for example. Subsidy payments have more-than-quadrupled since 2010, and the undoubted reason is unbridled corruption. I do not believe the corruption in that sector is as insurmountable as the FG loves to pretend it is.

Either way, we are faced between maintaining status quo (and thus continually churning out subpar graduates) or at least a VERY clear acquiescence on the part of the FG that there needs to be a 'state of emergency' declared in the education sector and the budgetary allocations to Education be meaningfully reviewed upwards (not the minuscule 'upgrade' from 8.43% to 8.7% between 2012 and 2013).

For me, I think the FG is not - and has never been - sincere in its negotiation with ASUU. It does seem they are far more interested in winning the PR battle with the ordinary Nigerian than to tackle the rot in our Educational system. I'm not surprised. As I stated earlier, GEJ himself told us all in 2011 that "the only problem with our Universities is hostel accommodation". I see nothing in his disposition these days that this viewpoint has now been changed.

[quote author=chreld_b]Prof.Femi, I studied the world bank data with emphasis on Ghana and Nigeria. These are my summations.

1. There appears to be no data on Nigeria educational financial commitment. Also, other countries in that category were either politically unstable or economically deficient. This to me suggest that the amount Nigeria designated to education as at the time of compilation of that report was insignificant and negligible.

2. The percentage spent on education by Ghana as a fraction of the countries GDP was comparable to the the world's known most developed nations such as U.S, U.K, France, Germany E.T.C. Using the same indices of comparison.

3. However, disturbingly no country at the moment spends up to 26% of their GDP (going by that report) on education as recommended by the IMF (not sure if it was IMF can't remember the body at the moment).


Please analyse what I inferred in points 1 and 2, give me your opinion and confirm if they are correct by your own deductions.

Secondly, if my observation in point 3 is correct then would it not be unreasonable for ASUU to demand an increased expenditure from government using the recommended 26% as a yardstick.

Finally, don't you think it is somewhat misinforming to state categorically that developed countries of the world spend that amount or close to it on education when what the world bank has reported appears to be contradictory.

I have a strong feeling that my interpretation of the data in the link you posted might be faulty. Please let me know your take and kindly put things in proper perspective for me if necessary. Thanks[/quote]I'm sorry, I've been going off topic for a while with that oxford fellow, but i'd love to commend you for breaking the mold and actually engaging the Prof in the sort of logical discussion he's been asking for on the ASUU strike issue.

It isn't the IMF, It's UNESCO. and it's 26% of the budget, not the GDP. I'm glad you confirm that Ghana is putting a whole lot more effort than Nigerian in funding and revamping the education sector. At least if we aren't supposed to benchmark ourselves with the developed giants, Ghana's an analogue right beside us here in West Africa that we can use.

26% may be a stretch, especially when we have several other equally important sectors (health is one that is sorely lacking, security is another...then power generation etc) but there's a lot more the Government can do than to dedicate 8.7% of the budget (marginally up from 8.43% in the 2012 budget) to education.

oxford: Waiting for that fo00l called texazzpete to come and display his grammar!

Son of an imbeci-le father! mothered by as$ hawker.

Oloshi!

https://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/353/279/e31.jpg

Such an embarrassing, impotent display of childish petulance . I take it you have no logical rebuttal to put forward?

oxford: Obviously you are confused.

See the contradictions in your post:

You think the university system (or would you prefer I say ASUU) is 'FAR' more crucial and yet at the breath you think the FG should pay more attention to terrorism, corruption, power failure, inadequate health care and poor infrastructure. Well on the latter, you are right - these are the issues that this govt is placing on the front burner and not you self seeking ASUU.

The fact that you can use 'ASUU' interchangeably with 'University system' shows you up as a half-wit. When we're talking about a thorough revamp of our tertiary education system, we aren't talking about ASUU. ASUU is ONE union in the Universities. The likes of SSANU, NASU et al are also very critical cogs in the machinery.
Funding the University System to the tune of the 2009 Agreement is not benefiting ASUU alone. In fact, I make bold to say it is the students that will reap a significant amount of benefits.
You probably think money given to the Universities goes through ASUU

For you second point, even if your paymasters suddenly get a strong does of common sense and implement the UNESCO recommendation in budgetary allocation, there's still a whole lot more left to tackle all those other societal ills I mentioned earlier.

Funny how you built your entire argument on what I did not say. If we were to turn your logic back on you, it would seem you're insinuating that GEJ isn't here to do anything apart from 'shackling ASUU'.

Tell me, Is the goal to 'shackle ASUU' or rejuvenate our Universities to enable them turn out much better graduates? If you insist ASUU strikes are the bane of our educational institutions, are you saying that yourself and GEJ are perfectly happy with maintaining the status quo?

oxford: "paid propagandist" this line have been over used by GEJ haters like you, come up with new ones please.

Well, feel free to make up one of you own. Here's a fun way to do so
(Paid, Sponsored, unrepentant, imbecilic) (Sycophant, lapdog, Shill, Traitor, Esau)

Pick one word from each bracket and concatenate them together to get a new name for yourself. For example: 'Paid Shill', 'Imbecilic lapdog', 'unrepentant sycophant'.

You can come up with more fun combinations to describe yourself

oxford: Lastly, you will soon be disappointed because now that payment of their salaries have stopped, you begin to hear a different tune soon, very soon.

The only thing that will disappoint me is if the strike is called off without a significant part of their demands being met.
Either way, I doubt anything can be more disapointing to me than the performance of your paymaster. Such a cruel blow to me...when I remember staying up late to cheer him on in the PDP primaries against Atiku. I believed in him then.

oxford: How far with phone market or are you also on strike

i feel for you. I really do. You obviously went through my post history, hoping to see something to use to tie me to the likes of APC or Tinubu or any of the other cudgels you PDP apologists use when you're arguing on Nairaland. You have now no doubt seen that I do not spare anyone who underperforms. I have harsh words for the likes of Fashola and Tinubu in their handling of the doctors strike, infrastructure in Lagos and the Lekki tollgates saga.
I have no history of tribalist posting on Nairaland. A thoroughly detribalised Nigerian from none of the 'big three' ethnic groups. Zero motivation except to leave a better Nigeria for my children.

So what do you do? You see my interests in the 'Phones' section, m0r0nically surmise that I am into the 'phone market' and try a weak jab at me
I shudder to think what your jibe would have been had I been a prolific poster in the Romance section.

I think I overestimated your intelligence levels. I'm now mentally downgrading you from 'naive, greedy simpleton' to 'brainless neanderthal'

oxford: Thank you for the correction. I guess you silly ability to communicate CLEARLY need to be worked on. All the same thanks.

Everyone else seem to have clearly understood my words. I accept your gratitude for the education I just gave you.

oxford: However that does not in any way belittle the points I have made which is ALL human institution have challenges with funding and it thus mean by ur stup!d postulation that all institution should be on strike right now! see ur mumulity?

Some Institutions are FAR more crucial than others. Also, when underfunding moves to chronic levels and threatens the development of the nation, drastic action should be taken.
As far as I know, the presidency seems to have zero 'underfunding' problems. Wasn't it N1bn dedicated to meals alone in one year?
Careful prioritization should always be used when tackling underfunding. For example, if not for the Nigerian Senate, we would have put aside N4bn for building a 'First Ladies Peace Mission' secretariat in Abuja. Think of how many Primary school classroom blocks that sum can build!

oxford: So what if I don't have the time to cross my 't's and sot my 'i's? on my priority list nairaland is not even on the first page.

We both know it's a whole lot more than 'crossing your 't's'. To be fair, I'm pretty sure you're being paid per post, so you're probably always in too much of a hurry to churn out your usual daily quota of drivel to worry about your grammar.

oxford: The bottom line is ASUU is an AS$-hole and you.....emmm an as$ licker!

There you go again with the Irony . A cursory look at your post history paints an unflattering picture of you as a crude Sycophant and paid propagandist.

Seriously, I have no connection to ASUU. All I want is for my country to progress and develop. I will stridently battle you traitors that are only interested in stuffing your pockets.

oxford: texazzpete today is Saturday and I have some free time in my hands and I will gladly take you on any dim-witted, ludicrous and ridiculous comment you have.

Good thing I do not make comments of that nature.
I will respond to you as far as you amuse me. I am under no illusions that I stand to gain anything from these exchanges...you're clearly as dumb as a door-nail and your standard operating procedure on Nairaland seems to be a weird admixture of insults, GEJ cheerleading and illogical arguments. We'll see

oxford: GEJ is here to free from the shackles of people like ASUU that has held us back for years and people like you are advocating stone age methods of resolving trade dispute.

Hmm. i could have sworn that the FG 's the entity that has held us back for years. Afterall, if the FG had implemented the 2009 agreement, our Universities should have had a marked increase in quality...and these same undergraduates that are excoriating ASUU right now would be better equipped to take on the real world.

Strike still remains a viable tool for resolving issues like these. Would you prefer methods like the Arab Spring? Popular uprisings like in Syria, Libya, Egypt?

I'd be MUCH more impressed if GEJ were here to free this country from the shackles of terrorism, corruption, power failure, inadequate health care and poor infrastructure. Paid lapdogs like you probably think he was elected to stuff your pockets, but he was elected to tackle those things I listed above.

oxford: Am only glad that your opinion on this matter is trivial, immaterial, completely insignificant.

My opinion on this doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, true. ASUU's opinions matter. As long as they stand their ground and do what it takes to move this country forward, that is all that counts!

Hmm. You still went with 'Am' over 'I'm'. I guess you're one of those 'ineducable' people

4 Play: There's a lot to be said about this subject but I will try and be as brief as possible.



Few things irritate me as this dubious line of argument which I put in bold in the quote above and which goes as follows: Employee A should be paid more because employee B, operating in an entirely different sector by the way, is paid more. It stems from a profound misunderstanding that wages are largely a product of the interplay of the demand for and the supply of labour, with demand being a function of the financial resources of the employer. The notion that one group of employees, in this case university lecturers, deserve more by comparison to another group may perhaps be worthy of a debate about societal values and the like but is not the basis of sound economics or good policy making. It simply does not follow, even if you accept the premise that university lecturers should be paid more, that a person who ''deserves'' a higher wage must therefore be granted higher wages. I say this as a resident of country where train drivers with little more than A Levels (WAEC or JAMB equivalent) often make more than lecturers in Oxford and Cambridge (See the following links: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/52000-a-year-pay-deal-for-tube-drivers-and-theres-no-ban-on-strikes-6449485.html & [url]http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Journals/THE/THE/10_May_2012/attachments/Average_salary_of_academic_staff.pdf [/url])

It is not even clear that Nigerian lecturers deserve a higher wage if the question is determined by reference to Nigeria's financial resources. From my understanding, starting wages for lecturers in Nigeria are around 800,000 Naira or $4900 per year in a country where most live on less than $1 a day, almost a million children die each year due to poor health conditions, life expectancy is at levels last found in medieval Europe and few have access to things like pipe-borne water or regular electricity. Of all the country's pressing needs, why is boosting the income of the relatively far better off in Nigeria (it will be fair to say our lecturers are at least in the 95th percentile of wage earners) the focus of our attention?

The usual retort is to say that lecturers should be paid more when one considers the vast waste caused by corruption and theft. However, it is not clear why savings from waste should be directed to the well off and not to the vast majority of Nigerians for whom life is short, nasty and brutish. I have made this point in earlier posts but it is worth making again: increasing public sector wages requires trade offs and is in effect a zero sum game. Every increase in wages or expenditure in one particular area is met by a reduction in spending in another area. The national budget, if paid to each individual Nigerian, will work out at less than 32,000 Naira or $200 per person per year. You can bet your last Naira that increases in lecturers wages won't be met by reductions in oil theft or legislators wages, it will simply be met by reductions in public investments: fewer roads, medicine, hospitals and schools. Sincere 9gerian, though a paid hack, made a salient point that all the strike actions by ASUU and the consequent increase in wages have barely made a jot of difference to standards of education or the quality of life in Nigeria. This is why our recurrent expenditure is so high, we simply allocate more and more portions of the national budget to public sector workers in response to strike actions when economic growth and better standards of living require that money should be channeled towards public infrastructure. Do you know how much lecturers wages have increased in nominal terms over the last 2 decades whilst most Nigerians progressively slide into more poverty?

Make no mistake, I have always said that Nigeria needs to spend significantly more on education as this builds up human capital. Where I differ from the ASUU defenders is my belief that this requires building more schools and providing more educational facilities and not simply wiring more money into lecturers bank accounts and certainly not an emphasis on university education. Why in a country where many don't make it to primary school and vast swathes of people, particularly in the North, do not finish secondary school do we think that University education alone, which benefits a minority made up of mainly Southerners justifies spending of close to 15% of the annual budget? Prioritising university education when primary and secondary education is appalling, is like building a house and starting with the roofing first.

I support any strike action, be it by the NLC or the like, to force political change in general or specific politicians to resign. In respect of the latter, would a strike action by NUPENG or PENGASSAN not have an effect on the odious Ms Allison Madueke? What irritates me is when unions, a la ASUU, strike simply to increase their wages whilst operating behind the cloak of fighting for the general good. In my time in UNN, we witnessed protracted strikes preceeded by soaring talk of fighting for the general welfare of the university sector only for the strikes to be
called off when the wage demands were met with no discernible improvement in university facilities.

We will never learn until we realise that in a country of 170 million, policy and spending priorities have to maximise projects that affect the greatest number of people. University education, as laudable as it is, is a fixation for only a minority of Nigerians. While you and I are busy arguing on Nairaland about whether lecturers should be given more money, most of our country men and women will go to be hungry wondering where the next meal will come from. This is no way to develop a country.

You misunderstand my post.
I never claimed there needed to be parity in pay between a graduate assistant in a federal university and the pay for a new employee in a private organization like Zenith Bank. My point was that conditions of service were so bad then that a man who had spent the last 5 years of his life becoming a scholar in Engineering would easily cast his discipline aside for a mundane, repetitive job as a cashier.

You'll also notice that apart from the comment on remuneration, I also talked about decaying infrastructure.

4 Play: We will never learn until we realise that in a country of 170 million, policy and spending priorities have to maximise projects that affect the greatest number of people. University education, as laudable as it is, is a fixation for only a minority of Nigerians. While you and I are busy arguing on Nairaland about whether lecturers should be given more money, most of our country men and women will go to be hungry wondering where the next meal will come from. This is no way to develop a country.

Actually, UNESCO recommends 26% of the budget for education as 'vital for national development'. There's still a lot of scope left in the 74% remaining if judiciously used. This IS a pragmatic way to develop a country.
As far as I know, we're still devoting less than 10% to Education, a far cry from UNESCO's recommendation. You may argue the 'minority of Nigerians' line, but the ripple effect from millions of Nigerians receiving top notch tertiary education in a decade will be felt by a much larger pool of Nigerians.

I respect the intellectual edge you've brought to this discussion. If only that 'oxford' fellow could learn from you!

oxford: at first i thought of ignoring you but then you might out of folly think that is because you made any sense. If actually u graduated top of ur class as u claimed then God help us; no one else can. ASUU should really be asking for 10 trillions!

Your problem is crystal clear now. You have severe difficulties comprehending written English. I never claimed to be the best graduating student in my set, It is clear to all but the most inebriated that I was referring to someone else. It's a dead giveaway that I used words like 'He' not 'I'.

oxford: Ur zenth bank is enbeded with lot of employee issues, at a point staff salaries were slashed by over 50% - where were ur balls then? Am aware of a lot of contractualization in the banking sectors, how comes ur support for strike there where u are worked like a donkey is less 0%?

I have never worked with Zenith Bank, or even banked with them. See my response above. I suggest you refrain from quaffing alcoholic beverages before you respond to posts made by people who are intellectually on a notch (ok, make that three notches ) higher than you.

oxford: By ur theory, all institution that has for form of challenge or the other should down tool abi? People dey shay! Just tell one human institution world wide that does not have challenge with funding?

A whole lot of institutions in Nigeria have challenges with funding, true, but some are WAY more important than others. How many buckets of tears are we to shed if the Culture and Tourism ministry (for example) is somewhat financially constrained?
Technology develops a nation. Education is the key to develop this country. Without a sound tertiary education, we will remain a shadow of our true potential. It would be VERY beneficial if some of the huge sums being stolen under fuel subsidy scams and oil bunkering can be recovered and used to fund our universities.

oxford: Am not in to name calling contest with you. Am way out of ur league.

Thank you. At least I knew the difference between 'I'm' and 'Am' when I was in JSS1. I humbly suggest you procure a copy of this wonderful book below. I read it when I was still in primary school.

[img]http://exhibits1.museums.org.nz/collection3RML/exhibit4/images/e40002a.jpg[/img]

You're nowhere near my league. Turn aside from me and continue your usual habits of abusing perceived 'enemies' and 'haters' of GEJ.

oxford: Whoever awarded you that grade is a bigger problem than ASUU, trust me

Oh, the irony

Sincere 9gerian: After going through most of the posts on this thread, my verdict still remains that the solution to the problems in our university system does not lie in ASUU or their incessant strikes. In fact, ASUU is part of the problem.

We must not forget that ASUU strikes did not start today. ASUU has been going on strikes since the late 70s. The problems for which ASUU embarked on strike in 2013 are similar to those for which ASUU called for strikes in the past, including the late 70s.

So what has changed? Today its president Jonathan versus new ASUU president but the ISSUES are the same. The problems are the same. What do we do to a strategy that has not worked since the 70s? It is only a fool that keeps doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

From my understanding of the issues, once a new leadership of ASUU emerges, they announce their presence through strike. If not for this current strike, many Nigerians were not aware that ASUU now has a new leadership. It seems the performance of the leadership of ASUU is based on the number or lenght of strikes it embarks upon within its tenure.

Yes, there are problems in our universities but these problems CANNOT and can NEVER be solved by ASUU strikes. If the strikes embarked upon by ASUU since the 70s have not solved these problems, why would that of 2013 be different? If 3 decades after ASUU embarked on its first strike we are still talking about the same problems, then shouldn't we be looking for new and creative ways of solving these problems?

If anything, I think incessant strikes have WORSENED the problems. Strikes only provide temporary benefits for the lecturers and maybe in some cases more funds for the schools. But these little benefits could have also been achieved through other means without shutting down the schools.

Moreover, what we need is not temporary benefits. We need a SYSTEM that WORKS. We need a SYSTEM that is sustainable. We need a SYSTEM that is predictable. We need is system that will yield long term benefits and on a continuous basis. We a need a SYSTEM that is consistent.

We do not need ASUU. ASUU, by embarking on incessant strikes, is now part of the problem. It does not make sense to CONSISTENTLY distort/destroy the academic calender in the name of fighting for improved quality education. Whatever gains ASUU makes from the current strike has been outweighed by the the distortions the strike has created already in the academic calender system.

Here is my sincere and honest long term solution to the problems. We need to find away to proscribe ASUU or make it irrelevant. Govt (state and federal) have to hands off the control of higher education system and provide only annual grants (fixed by NASS) to them. The universities created by states will get their fixed grants from their state govt. Under this arrangement, the universities will have the independence and autonomy to fix their fees, generate revenue, run the programmes of their choice and determine their future. Their will be healthy competition which will engender progress and development in our higher institution. The NUC will continue to monitor the universities to ensure strict compliance with set standards. Any labour issue will be dealt with locally. UNN will not be strike because the Vice Chancelor of Unilag is having issues with his lecturers, and vice-versa. This is the arrangement that will guarantee SUSTAINABLE progress and development in the systems. (Note: This solution is blind to the RESONALITIES in power now. President Jonathan was not in power in the 70s, 80s, 90s,etc when ASUU went on strike. Those in power today may not be in power tomorrow).

Those who desire higher education should be ready to pay for it. After all, when they go to Ghana and other countries, they find ways of paying their fees. While basic education is compulsory, higher education is not.

The funds ASUU is currently asking for will better serve the nation if pumped into the BASIC education system. That is where govt, at all levels, have to pump in more funds. Until we fix the basic education systems we will continue to churn out unemployable graduates from our higher institutions even if we pump $100 billion into the universities.

There you are...Nairaland's resident Esau

After the blind eye turned to the insane amount of oil being stolen in the creeks, the blind eye to the educational sector constitutes the second major act of treason this FG is carrying out against the Nigerian state. One would think President Jonathan would know better as a former academician, but apparently there is more interest in centenary celebration and witch-hunting political enemies than fixing the engine room of Nigeria.

I'm glad you say you want a system that works...a consistent system. Please advice your paymaster to accede to ASUU's demands, provide the funds to 'transform' Nigeria's universities and see if strikes will remain commonplace.

The Government's stance does not surprise me, though. Afterall, in the 2011 'debate' that starred GEJ, he was asked about the problems facing Nigerian Universities.
His Answer? "the only problem facing Nigerian Universities is poor hostel accommodation". I will never forget how i broke down in uncontrollable laughter


You think the money ASUU requests is daunting? it isn't. If the FG does the job we elected them for and work towards
1. Eliminating or drastically reducing oil bunkering and flowline theft
2. Eliminating the rampant corruption in the Fuel Subsidy payments and NNPC/Petroleum ministry, saving hundreds of billions of Naira
3. Spend less money on frivolous celebrations, pay-off for militants etc

The money to save Nigeria's future could be realized without much furore.

oxford: in my interaction thus far with the prof he has admitted that:

1. Some part of ASUU demand is silly - like asking for the transfer of landed property to university

2. If he is in GEJ shoe he wont met ASUU demand in full riight now but will explain to them "sincere" position of things

3. Most lecturers are unqualified, corrupt and unfit to be in the university system

having made him admit the aforementioned, i have no further interest in this discussion.

Thank you all

I am totally thrilled that you have taken yourself and your inane, defeatist logic out of this conversation. I read your initial posts with mounting disbelief that anyone could be so silly.

The problem I've noticed with you and many other Nairalanders here is the fallacy of hasty generalization, as well as a chronic desire to reach for hyperbole at every moment. There ARE crooked lecturers. Some are womanizers. Some are extremely cruel. That much I agree. But saying "Most lecturers are 'unqualified, corrupt and unfit'" is as m0r0nic as someone saying "most students are cultists and brutal killers" because they've had bad experiences with cultists.

I feel sorry for prof.femi. He has displayed more tolerance than I would have, but it must feel like casting 'pearls before swine' at the moment. This is a forum where people like you will call lecturers out for being 'unqualified' yet complained bitterly when ASUU went on strike to press for more befitting remuneration for its members. I graduated in 2004. The best graduating student in Engineering in my set finished with a GPA of 4.89. The school offered this Electrical/Electronics Engineering graduate automatic employment. Do you know what the young Engineer did? He turned it down to become a cashier at Zenith Bank. So where are the qualified lecturers to come from when the best and brightest grads see the current system as not being lucrative enough, or are put off by the decaying infrastructure ?

We face a critical time in our history. We NEED to DRAMATICALLY improve out tertiary educational system with enough investment to boost infrastructure, hire better talent and motivate existing talent. We NEED to do this quickly!

Sometimes, the utter lack of shame in many of you undergraduates (and fresh graduates) makes me laugh. You do not feel shame that accounting graduates need to be put through a long training program to enter any of these local banks. You do not feel shame that your laboratories do not work. You do not feel shame that your country touts a space program that none of your Universities offers. You do not feel shame that homeless palestinians can build Qassam II rockets while your graduates will struggle to even put together a garden variety solid-fuel rocket with blackpowder propellant. You do not feel shame that private universities like Covenant Uni are outpacing the venerable Universities.

ASUU has my support in this strike, 100%. Full support to the Resident Doctors Strike. This is the crucial moment where we choose to be patriotic and reposition Nigeria for the future...or when we accept our place as the 'cannon fodder' for the rest of Africa. Such a shame some of you are all too willing to slip into bovine complacency and accept a future where we are subservient to the likes of Ghana. The race is NEVER about resources and population...which is why Israel (with a MUCH higher focus on Education and Technology) is easily able to outmuscle the likes of Saudi Arabia.

Dhurmynick: 2go to Nigeria is what
facebook is to the U.S.
Every young man or
woman fortunate
enough to purchase a
relatively sophisticated
mobile phone has an
account on it. The good
things this social
networking site has
brought to the country
are quite numerous

I wouldn't use that horrid, crappy looking app on my phone even if you paid me. I installed it, saw how fugly and unintuitive it looked, joined one chatroom for the kicks and quickly uninstalled that POS.

Comparing 2go to FaceBook in terms of penetration is just hilarious.

naijaking1: He has no business being anybody's PRO. He can now go work fulltime for Boko Haram

I don't understand this. Why are you this m0r0nic?!
You're Igbo, you'd feel VERY aggrieved if someone said something really odious about your tribe. Why would you make the imbecilic insinuation that all Northerners = Boko haram sympathizers?

You and all 13 misguided people (so far) who 'liked' your post are really silly.

elevatedblog: BlackBerry Z30 is another stunning innovation by BlackBerry Limited having a stunning 5″ display screen which is the successor of the BlackBerry Z10. This BlackBerry Z30 high-end Touchscreen smartphone has an impressive specification with a dual core snapdragon S4 Pro and 2GB of RAM with a 16GB of flash memory. www.biztechclass.com/blackberry-z30-high-end-touchscreen-smartphone/

Please stop embarrassing yourself in public. Where is the 'innovation' here in making a phone with 5 inches?

'high end' with dual core S4 Pro when Android flagships are shipping with the Snapdragon 800 and iPhone 5S has the ultra fast A7 SoC.

Choose something else to promote your blog...with your shoddy grasp of tech on display, why will anyone choose to visit your blog?

ketoprofen: Y do u say so?;

Galaxy S3 is faster, most likely has a better build quality, has guaranteed updates and most likely a better camera (dont be fooled by the megapixel count, that's meaningless)

The 'guaranteed updates' bit is very important. You'll likely never get Android 4.4 on all these Tecno and Infinix phones. You'll get that on the Galaxy S3

noblefada: No the clinical trials were done in Africa. I won't be celebrating just yet, I followed the trials and know a little about malaria, results of trials were not so convincing and the protection is just for about a year. Will keep my fingers cross until 2 yrs after mass deployment.

if it was able to protect a large proportion of children injected with the vaccine, why is this not cause for celebration?

mjlumideee: y is Africa alwaya a test ground for these ailment, most especially malaria?

1. Clinical testing was done in the US
2. Africa has the biggest concentration of malaria in the world.

I wish you clowns would stop making light of this issue. Nearly a million children die of malaria every year. You people should be jumping with joy instead of all this bullcrap FUD.

If you're asking why Africans have lots of malaria cases, why not go and ask whatever deity you believe in?

Excellent stance from ASUU. Keep the strike going until the FG implements the 2009 agreements, or at least agrees to implement not less than 80% of the agreement.

Unless you absolutely NEED Dual SIM, a Galaxy S3 at 60K is the better buy over this phone.

Such an irony when an 'unbeliever' like Bill Gates does more for charity - and more to help the sick and suffering - than 99% of our 'Men of God' who tell you that suffering and poverty is from your sins, your mindset or because you don't 'give'.

AjanleKoko: 2 million people, definitely an exaggeration. But traffic on the waterways is increasing.

But his healthcare record isn't that poor tho. He's refurbished a number of general hospitals and health centers, pregnant women are treated for free in government facilities, and seniors are subsidized. I would say 55% pass mark for healthcare. The real failure is in education.

Then you are far more tolerant of under-performance than I am.

Doctor: Patient ratio in Lagos is more than 1: 10000. That's failure No. 1
Lagos State doctors are some of the most overworked in Nigeria. A tired, weary doctor is a less effective doctor. That's failure point Number 2

2 crippling strikes in 3 years, during which the State Govt displayed crass insensitivity to the suffering of the common man. Failure point No. 2.


I must confess I have no idea on the state of education in Lagos. My kids go to excellent private schools though

2 million people transported daily via water? I find this figure hard to believe.

Fashola is doing an Ok job though. Sometimes it's almost easy to forget his poor record in health care and the pitiable state of roads in some of the less celebrated areas in Lagos

LMFAO! This is a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome.
I wonder what kind of dementia will make someone celebrate the 'swag' and 'investment' of someone who has been repeatedly accused of making away with taxpayer's monies.

Whatever it is, It's rather mischievous to be lauding this man for 'developing' the east when he had two terms to do something and ended up leaving the state in a pitiable condition.

Sycophants and propagandists have made Naira land their new Haven.

greatgod2012: I do not and will never support what the lady did to the guy, infact, its very bad and should not be encouraged at all.


However, i want to look at it from another angle. I see some "what ifs" in this relationship.


What if it was the guy who first scammed this lady in one way or the other before, i meant before their first separation and the lady has been looking for a way to revenge?


What if it was the guy who first broke this lady's heart in a very hard way and the lady thinks this is the best way for her to pay him back in his coin?
Many what ifs...............


Since we are not able to hear from the lady's mouth her reason for her action and also we dont know what really transpired between the two of them, i think its better to tread carefully when judging the lady.


Once again, i do not support her action, but its only God who sees what is hidden.

May God help us all.

stop trying to find a rationale for fraud.