The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has voiced opposition to the proposed implementation of education loans, claiming that these loans have been a colossal failure in Nigeria and other countries where they have been implemented.
The union expressed concern that those who support the idea are so willing to impose it on Nigerians when they have done more to drive Nigerians into poverty via blatant incompetence in managing the country’s economic fortunes.
This was said by ASUU in a statement released on Monday after its National Executive Council (NEC) meeting at the University of Calabar, which was penned by its president, Emmanuel Osodeke.
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The lecturers appealed to well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the government to release the withheld salaries of its members, adding that they view as casualisation, the payment of salaries to some of its members in the month of October based on pro-rata.
The ASUU leaders appreciated its members and their families for their resilience, assuring that their understanding and perseverance, in the face of hardship and provocation occasioned by the government’s intransigence and insensitivity, shall be rewarded by posterity.
ASUU said;
NEC observed with concern the systematic disengagement of government from the funding of Public Universities through the proposed introduction of education loan which has proven to be a monumental failure in our nation and some other countries where it was introduced. We find it troubling that the proponents of the policy are so eager to foist it down the throat of Nigerians when they have done more to push the working people of this country into poverty through sheer incompetence in handling the economic fortunes.
The Union is disturbed by the surreptitious moves by the government to price university education beyond the reach of the poor Nigerian students and their parents through the introduction of various charges.
The Union calls the attention of Nigerians to the lingering issue of renegotiation of the 2009 FGN-ASUU Agreement which was the initial issue that led to the just suspended strike More worrisome is the increasing anti-labour posture of government, suggestive of attempts to abrogate the principle of collective bargaining agreement. NEC rejects in totality government’s arrogant insistence on handling down an award instead of a bargained salary package.
ASUU calls on Nigerians of goodwill to, in the interest of our students and the nation, prevail on Nigerian government to urgently address all outstanding issues contained in the December 2020 FGN-ASUU Memorandum of NEC rejects with vehemence, the current attempts to impose master-slave treatment as mechanism for relating with Nigerian scholars under whatever guise by the ruling class. ASUU members are citizens, not slaves.
