The Bauchi State Chapter of the Academic Union of Universities has said that the union will not shift grounds on their demand for the hundred percent implementation of the 2009 agreement, saying that the federal government is not transparent and sincere in addressing the rot in the education sector.
The State Chairman of the union, Dr. Lawan Abubakar who stated this Thursday in an interview at the ASUU secretariat in Bauchi lamented that the federal government and the National Assembly have been gambling and playing politics with the future of students in the varsities by refusing to implement an agreement it consciously entered into with the union four years ago.
According to him, “I can recall vividly in 2011 December, ASUU went on strike over this same non-implementation of the 2009 agreement. In January 2012,we sat down again with the government and drafted a memorandum of understanding,(MOU) on how the 2009 agreement will be implemented”.
“In the MOU,all the nine demands of ASUU were given deadlines for their implementation.If the government had sincerely followed the MOU,implementation would have been done with in June,2012, but the government kept dragging the issue,without any positive headway”.
The ASUU Chairman said the chairman of the implementation committee on needs assessment of universities,Governor Gabriel Suswan did not disclose to the union the source of the 100 billion naira disbursement infrastructural intervention fund to the fifty-one benefiting universities.
He said beside the fact that tertiary institutions in the country have not been given their 2013 allocations, Governor Gabriel Suswan has also not disclosed the funding agencies of the 100 billion naira as well as when the government will release the 2013, 400 billion naira intervention fund to tertiary institutions that is due.
Dr.Lawan said the federal government disbursement of 30 billion naira for earned allowances of federal government universities was unacceptable to the union because by the analysis that was made in 2012,the cost implication of the arrears that the federal government should bear is eighty-seven billion naira and not 30 billion.
