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From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
A former Attorney General of Imo State and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chukwuma Ma-Chukwu Ume has called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the 36 State governors to expedite actions and bring an end to the three months strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
While noting that the issue of repetitive strike by ASUU has become a source of national embarrassment, the senior lawyer warned that if not immediately addressed by relevant authorities and stakeholders, most Nigerian youths in the tertiary institutions will become retarded and half-baked-minds.
In a 12-page letter dated June 7, 2022 and addressed to the Federal Government through the National Assembly and the offices of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation(SGF); Minister of Education, his Labour counterpart and other stakeholders, Ume, who is also the Rapporteur, Victims of Persecution, stated: “If we shy away from this, we will certainly become “the village that has lost its soul” and generations will ask, where you not there? What did you do?
Recipients of the letter also includes the Executive Secretary, National University Commission(NUC); Chairman, Senate Committee on Education, National President, Academic Staff Union of Universities, Association of Vice Challencellors of Nigerian Universities (AVCNU), National Association of Nigerian Students among others.
Ume lamented that the perennial ASUU strike is making a cacricature of its future leaders.
He however blamed the Federal Government for reneging in its agreement with ASUU.
“By chapter 4, Clause 4.1 of the January 2009 agreement between ASUU and Federal Government of Nigeria, the government set aside the total sum of N1.5 trillion to be paid in three trenches spread across three years(2009, 2010 and 2011). Government has however maintained that it is impossible for it to raise that sum.
” This is turning out to be harder to believe, particularly due to the fact that many Nigerians are becoming more aware of the high level of unguided spending and profligacy which government officials enaged in.
“The ease with which billions are easily stolen from public treasury by both state actors and non state actors, has further put a crater to the Government claim,” Ume posited.
In attributing the incessant ASUU strike to poor funding of education, misappropriation of state funds and lack of political will or dereliction of duty by relevant agencies in the education sector, including the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND) and National University Commission(NUC), Ume disclosed plans to re-ignite the 2009 National Interest Education Bill, drafted by the Victims of Persecution.
The Victims of Prosecution, a nonprofit organization, had in 2009, drafted a National Interest Education Bill, which mandates that any person wishing to asumme political office in Nigeria must ensure that their children and spouses would not be attending any foreign academic Institution and would do so as long as he remains in office.
Ume explained that the Bill was to essentially save our educational system, engender patriotism for our country, save political office holders from the strong suspicion of merely begin in change of the resources of a nation they do not hope in and enthrone a nation our children will be proud of.
He noted that to the delight of our rulers whose children are airlifted abroad for their education,
“these abnormalities ensure that the reigns of power remain in this families while their neighbour’s children remain ready instruments for the ongoing human carnage and blood-letting in this country”.
The former Attorney General who wondered whether Nigeria is substituting education with violence, noted that “soon there could be more guns in Nigeria than books and more kidnapping bushes than libraries.
ASUU has been on strike since February 14 this year over the adoption of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System, IPPIS, as the payment system in the university sector, poor funding of the sector, non-payment of salaries and allowances of some members, the inability of the government to also pay Earned Academic Allowance, proliferation of universities among other.
The Prof. Nimi Briggs-led committee set up the Federal Government to renegotiate the 2009 Agreement signed by the government with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and put an end to the ongoing industrial action by the union has failed to meet the three-month time frame given it by the FG to conclude its assignment.
