We don’t know why ASUU is on strike, says FG
The Federal Government had said it was not aware of reasons behind the persistent strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
It said that the state universities known to be set up and funded by state governments have no point joining federal universities on strike, if the claims for the strike by the union were genuine.
Minister of state for education, Emeka Nwajiuba, while speaking in Abuja, informed the union that it reserves no right, as employees, to dictate to the government, their employer, how their members’ salaries would be paid.
He claimed that the government has limited resources and cannot borrow money to pay the union members, emphasizing that the government can only borrow money to bankroll infrastructure with tendency of getting returns.
“Why they (ASUU) have chosen to go on strike is something that neither you nor I can explain”, he told reporters.
“In the school system, we have about 2.6 million Nigerian undergraduates in the nearly 200 universities across Nigeria. The federal government owns less than 50 of these universities. State governments own nearly 50 of them as well whereas private people, private organisations, faith based organisations own over 100 of them.
“The only part where children are not in school at the moment are the ones that belong to the federal government. So there is no need for any other university to be at home,” he said.
Nwajiuba explained that: ”The engagement with Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has been a long drawn one, based on the 2009 agreement that was signed before we came into government.
”It is our duty as government to give life to those agreement which ASUU rightly seeks to make sure that the universities that the federal government owns are properly funded.
“The federal government’s funding is very limited and because of the additional challenges of security, it had to repeatedly borrow money to finance projects. This same borrowing is not available to build social infrastructure, it’s only available to build infrastructure that government can get return from, like railways.
“To borrow and pay people is normally not what World Bank or other financial institutions borrow money for.
However, the federal government has continued to address this by paying the salaries that are due.”
He noted that the union members cannot, all the time spell out to the government authoritatively how their salaries would be paid.
In his words, he said: ”Government is the one who pays, therefore, it is impractical and incongruous that somebody who is paid a salary continues to dictate for someone who pays him.”
