The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has said it is ready to meet with the incoming administration of Senator Bola Tinubu to find a permanent solution to its incessant faceoff with the government only on one condition – government must show determination to handle education issues with the seriousness they deserve.
Speaking in an interview with Vanguard on Monday, the National President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, however, said if the Tinubu administration would go the way of its predecessor, then the final nail would have been put on the coffin of tertiary education in the country.
” We can meet and are ready to meet with the incoming government if they would show more seriousness and willingness to accord education the pride of place it deserves. They just have to go many steps higher than what we have now.
We hope they would see the need to give education top priority and save it from collapse,” he said.
On the steps to resolve the issue of withheld salaries and other matters in contention with the outgoing government, Osodeke noted that no significant progress has been made.
” We called off our industrial action about six months ago because of the pronouncement by the court, but up until now, the matter is still dragging at the court. It was easy and quick for them to get us to suspend the strike, but it has taken ages for the matter to be resolved by the court. Out next hearing date is May 2, this year.
“They are using bureaucratic bottlenecks to let the matter drag before the court. A number of things they said they would do, they have not done them. Anyway, their time is almost spent,” he stated.
Commenting on the N320 billion intervention fund that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, said it would release to higher institutions this year, Osodeke said there was nothing spectacular about it.
” It is an intervention fund and it is also statutory as it is from the 2.5 percent Education Tax TETFund collects from the profits of public quoted companies. Even that TETFund is in existence is courtesy of the struggle by ASUU. The government has not said anything about the N470 billion it promised to include in the 2023 budget and the year is almost halfway now,” he said.
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