ASUU Strike: We prefer to stay at home for 10yrs – ASUU

Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU,
Benin
Zone, yesterday, expressed the resolve of members
to
stay at home for up to 10 years than call off the
current strike action embarked upon by the union
five
weeks ago, if the Federal Government continues to
shy
away from the agreement it reached with the
union in
2009.

President Goodluck Jonathan had Tuesday,
approved
the implementation of the recommendation of the
government committee on repositioning of federal
and
state universities.

But the Benin Zone of ASUU described as a
shame,
government’s refusal to meet its end of the
Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, entered
with
ASUU in 2009, wherein government promised to
release N100 billion immediately out of the
N500billion it agreed to pay.
The Zonal Coordinator, Benin zone of ASUU, Dr.
Ighalo
Sunny, said yesterday, that part of the MOU
signed in
2012 between the Federal Government and the
union
was that government will increase the yearly
budgetary
allocation to the educational sector to 26 per cent
among others.

He said: “It is sad that government has
failed to
fulfill
the agreement on the universities. The N500
billion is
not to pay lecturers but to fund infrastructural
decay
in Nigerian universities. What that means is that
government has not shown readiness to implement
same. For us, the solution is simple, honour and
implement fully the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement.

We
believe that the 2009 agreement is the antidote to
the
debilitating crisis bedevilling Nigerian universities.”
Describing the rumour that ASUU will soon call-
off the
strike as a folktale, he noted that the union
appreciates the interest shown by stakeholders and
groups in the crisis, “ but that will not stop us from
finding lasting solution to the decay in our
education
sector. So, even if it takes us another 10 years, we
will
remain at home until the right thing is done.”