The President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, has accused the Federal Government(FG) of not giving priority to tertiary education. The FG, he said, had addressed the issue of the fuel N4tn subsidy budget while ignoring issues concerning university education.
Speaking during a programme on Channels Television on Wednesday, Osodeke asked the government to take N200bn from the N4tn subsidy budget to address the challenges of its members. This he said will address the union’s strike decision.
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Osodeke said, “It is always funny that the government cannot raise N200bn to revamp Nigeria’s universities to world standards. He affirmed that yet the same government could raise N4trillion for fuel subsidy.
“You can raise a budget to make N4trillion for subsidy in a year, but you cannot raise N200bn to fund your education where you don’t have the infrastructure. You can spend N228bn to feed children in primary or secondary schools but you cannot raise this fund for your university; it is an issue of priority. That is the problem.
“If you remove N200bn from N4trillion to fund your universities, you still have N3.8trillion for fuel subsidy.
“We don’t believe there is a fuel subsidy. There is no country where you have the crude intelligentsia. You have been importing fuel for the past 20 years; something is ongoing. No country in the world will do that. In the 60s, we built four refineries, and between 1999 and now, we cannot build one or service the ones we have.”
