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Federal Government has released the sum of N130 billion to the striking Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, to put an end to the ongoing strike.
The governor of Benue State and the chairman of the Needs Assessment Report Committee, Gabriel Suswam made this declaration yesterday when the leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students, NANS, paid him a courtesy visit in the governor’s lodge yesterday in Abuja.
The governor said that the committee in conjunction with the leadership of ASUU approved the sum of N100billion for infrastructure and N30 billion for earned allowances which was disbursed by the Federal Ministry of Education yesterday.
Suswam further stated that the money is segmented into two: N30 billion for the payment of earned allowances to lecturers and N100billion for revitalisation of the universities.
According to Governor Suswam, the universities governing councils would pay this to deserving staff but because of the amount which ASUU now claims as arrears, government has decided to assist the university councils to pay as government did not receive any computation of amount involved until February 2013.
By this computation, ASUU is claiming N92 billion as arrears for three year’s payment based on percentage range of between 15 and 20 percent of personnel cost.
The ASUU president, Prof Nasir issa-Fagge had claimed that, “Government has declared that it will not pay university academics their earned allowances which have accumulated from 2009 to 2013. Rather, it is talking about providing N30billion to assist various governing councils of federal universities to defray the arrears of N92 billion owed to all categories of staff in the university system.”
Continuing he said: “ASUU team was particularly amused that government believed that what our members are looking for is just money to spend. Why else would government, through the Minister of Finance dangle N30billion as if it was a dole out when in fact that amount of money was unrelated to the agreement and the work of the implementation committee. Our members have earned their allowances by working for them. They are not begging the government for crumbs. They are owed by the Nigerian government and they deserve to be paid. Government officials are collecting much more from our economy than they are contributing to it.”
The ASUU president’s claims do not seem farfetched. Reports say that 109 senators put together earn about N19.6 billion a year while N51.8 billion is spent on members of the House of Representatives for the same period, with a total cost of N71.4 billion. N71.4bn is about 17.8 percent of the N400billion yearly intervention fund recommended by the Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities.
Fagge opined: “All the government is gloating over now is N100bn which is nowhere near the scientifically arrived congruent sums in the 2009 agreement, the 2012 MoU and the 2013 Technical Report on the Needs Assessment of Nigerian Public Universities.”
The union is also worried that government plans to divert the yearly allocations to universities by TETfund to make at least 70 percent of the N100billion. The ASUU chairman said, “This is unacceptable to ASUU; it is like robbing Peter to pay Paul, since the idea of revitalisation took cognisance of the intervention role of ASUU.”
Responding, the NANs president, Comrade Gbadibo told the governor that they were tired of staying at home and urged the government to fast track the processes to enable them return to school.
