The Federal Government on Wednesday lambasted the Academic Staff Union Universities for refusing to call off its six-month strike.
The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, in Abuja, said the bulk of education budget was being spent on 10,500 professors in Nigeria’s public universities.
Faulting ASUU’s request for more funds, the minister said the union should realise that no sector in the country was getting enough money.
He also said the union’s penchant for strike was driving public school students abroad and to private universities.
Following their disagreement with the Federal Government over non-implementation of 2009 agreements and opposition to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, which government insisted all workers must adopt, the lecturers on March 23 began an indefinite strike.
On Friday, the Federal Government directed all educational institutions to resume on Monday next week as the spread of COVID-19, which necessitated the shutting down of the schools had reduced.
But on Monday, the President of ASUU, Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, said that no member of the union would resume because they could not work on an empty stomach.
The minister of state for education said ASUU could not blame government for not running universities well, saying the institutions were run by the union members.
According to him, the bulk of the money that is being budgeted for education is paid to the 10,500 professors, out of the 71,000 lecturers in Nigeria.
He said, “Actually, there have been a lot of people asking me as minister what I think is the real intention of ASUU. If you look at it critically, what ASUU is achieving by this (strike) is driving
students to private universities and out of the country.
“There is nothing that is now an issue. Even if you say universities are not well run, it is ASUU members that run them. If you say there is no enough money given to education, there is no enough money given to anything in Nigeria.
“The bulk of the money that is in education is paid to these professors. There are 71,000 lecturers in Nigeria alone, with 10,500 of them as professors. There are some countries that don’t have up to 2000 (professors).”
