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The Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Ebonyi State University Chapter, Dr. Ikechukwu Igwenyi, has urged the union’s national leadership to go back to the drawing board and review the 2009 agreement it entered with the Federal Government.
This was as the don stressed that the N1.1 trillion outstanding revitalisation fund for the nation’s universities was no longer tenable, saying the current economic realities did not match with the hitherto pact the union entered with the authorities in 2009.
He stated this in a statement on Tuesday in Abakaliki.
While pointing out that it was expedient for leaders to pay critical attention to the merits of ASUU’s position on tertiary education, he lamented that the government was paying lip-service to the demands of the union.
The statement read in part, “ASUU, as a thinking union of intellectuals, is not realistic in this current struggle and there is need for the union to call for the review of the negotiated 2009 FG/ASUU agreement to ascertain possible performance rate and the expected outcomes.
It is considered that the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement is not only out of date and obsolete, but unrealistic today, if truth must be told, because of the time value of money over 13 years of this negotiation.
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“It is a fact that a people that take no interest in what seems small, will definitely take false interest in what is big. The fact is also that Nigerian leaders set wrong priorities and are not paying due attention to the demands of ASUU in this imbroglio but rather join the unpatriotic gladiators that have no interest in nation building through quality education of Nigerians because their children are not attending schools here in Nigeria.
“It is a clear testimony of irresponsibility with the recent vituperations from some highly placed individuals in government and the idea of taking ASUU to court.
“Rather than look critically into the merits in ASUU position on tertiary education, leaders tell Nigerians that university education is not for everyone; ASUU fixes salary of members; there is no money to meet ASUU’s demands; the government will take ASUU to National Industrial Court; students should take ASUU to court; etcetera. What a people!
“No nation can develop beyond the level of education of her people and by extension, beyond the capacities and capabilities of their tertiary institutions. If the youths who are the future leaders and trustees of posterity are trained in institutions with low-grade resources and manpower, where lecturers are subjected to dehumanising treatments, all manner of cruelty without consideration to human dignity, threats to job security and salaries, emotional trauma, mental torture and psychological mortification of unimaginable proportion in a developing nation, how can such a system perform maximally?”
