2009 agreement: FG is owing us N1.1trilion – ASUU

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2009 agreement: FG is owing us N1.1trilion – ASUU
 By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan.
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) Thursday in Ibadan said Federal Government still owes the union N1.1trillion outstanding intervention funds.
ASUU in a statement signed by its Ibadan Zonal Coordinator, Professor Segun Ajiboye stressed that this was as a result of the government failure to fully implement the 2009 ASUU/FGN agreement.
The union in a release entitled “Iyayi must not die in Vain” made available to journalists in Ibadan pointed out that it was unfortunate that since 2013 when ASUU suspended its prolonged strike, universities in the country were yet to get any intervention fund aside the initial N200billion released in 2013 out of the N1.3trillion intervention agreement signed with the union.
While maintaining that nothing was injected in 2014 and 2015, ASUU urged President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Education Adamu Adamu to ensure timely payment of the outstanding intervention funds (N1.1trillion), earned academic allowances and commence renegotiation of the agreement.
Professor Ajiboye added that academic staff in Nigerian universities are getting restive because of the failure of government to attend fully to the agreement reached with the union, saying, it was high time the government of President Buhari invested in Education for a secured future of the country.
“At the University of Ibadan we have appraised the state of education since the 2013 struggle. We are sad to say that not much has been achieved. We remain resolute to fight for qualitative education in Nigeria to liberate the minds of our people and the masses because a mind that knows is a mind that is free”.
The ASUU coordinator noted that infrastructure at Nigeria universities remain dilapidated while working “environment is not conducive to impart knowledge” adding that heroic leaders around the world invested in education and ensured it was available for the children of the masses to have access to, noting that the future remains bleak until adequate investment is committed to education.
On Professor Festus Iyayi who died during an auto crash with the convoy of the Kogi State Governor two years ago on his way to attend an emergency ASUU meeting to suspend the six-month old strike in 2013, he said “precisely November 12, 2013 the union (ASUU) and the Nation lost an academic Icon in a ghastly motor accident involving one of the vehicles in the convoy of the Kogi State Governor, Idris Wada along Lokoja-Abuja road during which Professor Festus Iyayi was murdered.
“Festus Iyayi fought for the masses and lived an exemplary life. We are calling on the new Minister of Education and President Buhari to ensure that children of the poor have access to qualitative education. The Minister must ensure the full implementation of the 2009 agreement. The National Assembly to drive the change in the country by voting 26 per cent of the budget on Education. Iyayi’s dream for Education in Nigeria must not die”
ENDS.

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