Follow Us on Google
As the industrial action by varsity lecturers enters the ninth month, Kingsley Moghalu, convener, To Build A Nation (TBAN) and former deputy governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has warned that prolonged strike constitutes a serious infringement on the right of Nigerians, especially the youth, to education.
He said while Nigeria has had too many ASUU strikes for any meaningful university education system, the current strike has gone on for too long.
“Whereas industrial actions are legitimate, they become dysfunctional when they become protracted. That the government has allowed the current ASUU strike to continue for many months, by not reaching agreement with the lecturers, is very unfortunate.
“It amounts to a dereliction of the duty of the government to the wellbeing of the citizens. This strike has inflicted mental torture on university students, who are left to wonder when they will complete their programmes.
“Sadly, the ASUU strike falls into an established pattern. The government has not given due attention to education. The country has been underinvesting in education for years and is far behind its comparator developing countries and emerging economies in terms of public investment in education.
“For instance, the allocation to education as a percentage of Nigerian government’s total expenditures averaged just 7.7% between 2015 and 2020. In comparison, South Africa’s budgetary allocation to education was consistently above 18% in the same period, rising above 20% in 2020, according to data by the World Bank. At a time that the government was negotiating with ASUU over pay – even if the payment platform has dominated the negotiation – it submitted the 2021 Appropriation Bill in which only 5.6% of the total public expenditures was allocated to education. This indicates that the government is not giving enough considerations to the major issue in its long history of dispute with ASUU.”
