Strike: Why FG Cannot Meet ASUU Demands -Umahi

Strike: Why FG Cannot Meet ASUU Demands -Umahi

GOVERNOR David Umahi of Ebonyi State, has said that the federal government cannot meet the demands of the striking Academic Staff of Universities, ASUU as the country cannot afford to borrow N1.1 trillion for it.

Umahi made this known when he received the Board of Trustees of Nigeria Police Trust Fund at the new Government House, Abakaliki.

ASUU, which has been on strike for over five months, is demanding among other things, the full implementation of the 2009 agreement it signed with the Federal Government.

According to Umahi, “I cannot see how we cannot sit down with our ASUU leaders and iron out this problem about the ASUU strike.”

He advised the Federal Government to begin by releasing fraction by fraction of the funds demanded by ASUU as a way of finding lasting solutions to the present educational challenge facing the country.

“I have read in social media and newspapers, how students got into trouble just by sitting at home or engaging in means of keeping themselves busy instead of being in schools. There is no way the country, Nigeria will go and borrow 1.1trillion to meet ASUU’s demand. It’s quite unreasonable. Are their demands genuine? Yes, but we can start little by little.

“There must be commitment on the side of both parties, ASUU is not asking this to take to their houses so to say, they are asking it for our children to better the infrastructure, to better the lecturers and the students. Yes, but we can start with a fraction of that and then have a programme that will run on the platform of sincerity to address all the lots.

“But let me also say that most of the time, our people have low appetite for maintenance of public works. No matter how much you deploy to these universities, unless the users, the industry, the regulators  begin to treat public infrastructure as their own in the various universities, it will continue to go bad no matter how much the federal government deploys to it.”