(ASUU) - A plot by Government to allow their private Universities to thrive

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has accused agents of the Federal Government of executing a well-planned plot to decimate the Nigerian public university system to allow their privately owned ones to thrive.

The union, however, said it would not fold its hands and allow such a plot to succeed.

It insisted that if strike remained the only language understood by the government, it would continue to speak it.

The Port Harcourt zone of ASUU, in a position paper read by its Zonal Coordinator, Stanley Ogoun, at the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education on Tuesday, identified persons and institutions frustrating their efforts for peaceful resolution of the issues.

Ogoun said the agents of the ministries of finance, the Office of the Accountant-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and particularly the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sunny Echono, were obstacles to resolving the problems.

He further said the Minister of Labour and Productivity, who took on the role of a conciliator, had failed, lamenting that even the intervention of the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari had yielded no results.

He appealed to members of the public to disregard claims by the government that it had paid ASUU N50billion in Earned Academic Allowance (EAA) Revitalisation Funds.

Insisting that the money had not been paid, Ogoun said the arrears of EAA up to 2019, which the government promised to pay that led to the suspension of ASUU’s last strike had remained unpaid.

He said the signing of the 2009 renegotiated agreement; the adoption of the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) and the urgent need to amend the Act establishing the National Universities Commission (NUC) remained the burning issues.

Ogoun said amending the Act would tame state governors from indiscriminately establishing new universities while abandoning the existing ones.

He said: “You should be aware of the deliberate and well-planned efforts to decimate the Nigerian public university system so that private ones can thrive.

Why are they afraid of competition. Let both exist side-by-side and let us see what becomes of such private-sector holdings in the educational sector.

“They are welcome development but public individuals, who intend to float such educational outfit must not use their positions in government to drive the death of publicly owned institutions to pave way for their private endeavours.

“Sadly, the public schools at the primary and post-primary levels have become comatose. Our universities must not be deliberately driven along the same dead-end for theirs to thrive.

“We will continue to resist all attempts at pricing university education out of the reach of the ordinary Nigerian via a tuition regime as the Ondo State test case”.

ASUU’s chairmen present at the gathering were, Uzoma Chima, University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT); Tonbara Kingdom, Niger Delta University (NDU); Emmanuel Ekwulo, Rivers State University (RSU); Joseph Endurance, Ignatus Ajuru University of Education (IAUE); Socrates Ebo, Federal University, Otuoke (FUO) and Donny Sigah, University of Africa, Toru-Orua.

Culled: The Nation