Strike: Go ahead, we are behind you – ERC tells ASUU

As the Academic Staff Union of the Universities(ASUU) embarks on nationwide strike to press home some of its demands, the Education Rights Campaign (ERC) has expressed it’s total supports towards the action, as it called on the government to immediately meet the demands and get the students back to campuses.

This is contained in a press release jointly signed by the National Coordinator, Comrade Taiwo Hassan Soweto, and the Secretary, Comrade Ibukun Omole, the copy of which was sent to REPORTERS on Tuesday.

The group called on ASUU not to make the strike a sit-at-home action rather, “activities like public rallies, leafleting, mass meetings and demonstrations should be organized regularly in and outside of campuses to ensure that the issues which have necessitated another strike are clearly explained to members of the public whose support and active involvement is vital if ASUU’s crusade to salvage the education sector is to succeed.

“We are aware that this indefinite strike has been called over issues that the general public have now become very familiar with. They are: government refusal to fully implement the 2009 ASUU/FGN agreement, 2013 MOU particularly its provision for a Public Universities Revitalization (Needs Assessment) fund totaling One Trillion, three Hundred Billion naira out of which only N200 billion has been paid so far, Payment of fractions/Non-payment of salaries especially in state Universities, Non-Payment of Earned Academic Allowance (EAA), Non-release of operational license of NUPEMCO as well as other issues concerning the welfare of academic workers.

“All of these issues singularly and collectively bothers on government inadequate funding of public education.

“For us in the Education Rights Campaign (ERC), we find it unacceptable that whilst government finds money to buy exotic cars for lawmakers, finance the outrageously expensive treatment of President Buhari in London and guarantees insanely luxurious lifestyle for political office holders, it is unable to find money to fund public education and meet the needs of academic staff.

“As far as we are concerned, Nigeria has enough wealth which if judiciously managed can fund education adequately and even ensure the provision of free and democratically-managed public education at all levels.

” What is responsible for this absurdity whereby a country with stupendous resources finds it hard to fund public education and ensure a stable academic calendar not punctuated by incessant strikes is the anti-poor neo-liberal agenda which feeds the greed of the capitalist ruling elite who corner over 80 percent of the country’s wealth thus leaving little or nothing to fund social services. The Buhari/Osinbajo government despite its campaign rhetoric of change have left this unjust arrangement unaltered which is why nothing has changed for the better since the government came to power over two years ago.

“Rather than deal with the crises afflicting the education sector, the Buhari/Osinbajo government has plunged it into more. For the over two years since the government came to power, funding to public education has remained abysmally low, fees and cost of education have been on the ascendance, poor welfare conditions and inadequate teaching facilities are still the order of the day while the government is unable to implement agreement not just with ASUU but also other staff unions.

“This means that the ASUU strike may just be a foretaste of what is yet to come. In this sense, the present strike is one that typifies the abysmal failure of the Buhari/Osinbajo government and the futility of its campaign promises all of which have turned out to be nothing but empty words. Therefore for us in the Education Rights Campaign (ERC), it is the Buhari/Osinbajo government that should be held responsible for the pain and anguish that this strike will bring to students and their parents/guardians,” the statement reads.

The group urged members of the public to lend their voices to the demands of ASUU and make the government to fulfill it’s responsibility towards public education to avoid a situation where the strike would drag on endlessly.

“What we need at this moment is a movement comprising education workers, students, labour unions and concerned members of the public to begin to actively organize to demand that government commits adequate resources to the funding of education.”