One year after university lecturers under the
umbrella of Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU) returned to classes after a protracted
strike, the Federal Government has been accused
of reneging on the agreement she reached with the
lecturers before calling off of the strike.

Speaking during a press briefing yesterday for one-
year remembrance of the killing of former ASUU
leader, Professor Festus Iyayi by the convoy of
Kogi State Governor, Captain Idris Wada (retd),
ASUU noted that one year after the agreement
with the Federal Government, no government-
owned university had received a dime from the
N200 billion government said it had set aside for
the revitalization of university education in the
current year.

Chairman, Nnamdi Azikiwe University branch of
ASUU, Comrade Dennis Aribidor, who briefed
journalists alongside members of his executive
and some senior members of the chapter lamented
that the issues that prompted the strike were yet
to be addressed in the universities and
government had as usual, kept mum.
He said, “It seems Iyayi’s death opened the
pandora box that suggests that ASUU’s
relationship with government might seem
irreconcilably hostile. While he fought for a just
cause, ASUU is presently skeptical that he died in
vain especially since the contention over
honouring the ASUU-FG 2009 agreement, which
cut his life short, is still far-fetched. This position
is based on some hard truths,” he noted. “No
government-owned university (federal or state)
has received funding to improve the teaching and
learning conditions from the N200 billion
earmarked for revitalizing of university education
in 2014. No university (federal or state) has
received money to pay arrears of earned
allowances owed staff from 2009 – 2013 as
agreed with government, apart from the 30 per
cent released during the strike.”

Aribodor spoke further, “the most fundamental
problem bedeviling the educational system in
Nigeria is that it is located within a philosophical
and political economic system which emphasizes
personal self-enrichment and individual
aggrandizement instead of emphasizing knowledge
acquisition geared towards public good and
national development.”
“Nigerian educational system is characterized by
chronic underfunding, bad leadership,
infrastructural decay, poor conditions of learning
and service, promotion of mediocrity, shortage of
personnel and entrenchment of orthodoxy,
parochialism and chauvinism,” he stressed.
The ASUU boss insisted that ASUU would
continue to reject “the ongoing systematic
privatisation of education and selling off of public
educational institutions. Education is a public
good and should not be left in the hands of
private individuals who are driven solely by profit
motives.”

Also speaking, the Coordinator of the Owerri Zone
of ASUU, Professor Ike Odumegwu accused
government of frustrating efforts by ASUU to
ensure that the killers of Iyayi were brought to
book, saying, “The Federal Road Safety
Commission, FRSC, took note of how Iyayi was
killed, but nothing has been done. Our lawyers
took the matter to court and it has been one
adjournment after another.”

Source: sunnewsonline.com/new/?p=90681

can i get surprised anymore in this country... before feb 15th all forms of association would go on one form of strike or protest or whatever

I guess we have become so accustomed to the lies they shove down our throats everyday, that nothing surprises us anymore. I weep for my country NIGERIA.