FG & State Governments Must IMPLEMENT
AGREEMENTS with ASUU, NASU, SSANU, NAAT, ASUP, SSANIP, COEASU, SSUCOEN &
NUT!!!
EDUCATION IS A RIGHT! SYSTEM CHANGE IS OUR
GOAL!!
PRESS STATEMENT
1.
The vehicle to ensure that EDUCATION IS A RIGHT in a polity where the
Government is irresponsible to the needs of the people is MASS ACTION. In line
with this, JAF, in furtherance of its resolve to mobilize stakeholders in the
Education sector across the country will hold a Zonal Protest in Calabar
on Tuesday, August 27th at the FREEDOM (Botanical Garden)
PARK, Mary Slessor Road @ 8am. Zonal Rallies in other zones and states such
as Kano, Ibadan, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Abuja are to follow. The
rallies/procession are buildup towards a NATIONWIDE MASS PROTEST that will
become inevitable should the Government remains insensitive.
2.
We urge Nigerians to organise and mobilize at all levels to SAVE PUBLIC
EDUCATION by joining the Mass Rallies/procession.
FG’s CURRENT
DIVERSIONARY ANTICS ON THE AGREEMENT IT REACHED WITH ASUU
3. The latest disinformation
by the Federal Government (FG) on its readiness to release N130bn to meet the
ASUU demands should be disregarded in the light of the following FACT.
4. The FG‘s plot is to deceive
the public that it is offering ASUU a lifeline (or intervention fund). This is
not correct because ASUU is not making any FRESH DEMANDS. ASUU is simply
demanding that the FG should implement to the latter the terms of the 2009
Agreement, viz.
·In 2001, the FG entered into an agreement with ASUU aimed at
resuscitating the University System in Nigeria and saving the system from total
collapse. The
Agreement
provides for re-negotiation every three years
for impact assessment and its implementation.
· The Agreement was due
for re-negotiation in 2004
but the FG reneged. Re-negotiation didn’t take place until 2007 and it
lasted more than two years to produce the 2009 Agreement, which the FG is refusing to implement.
·The contents of the 2009 Agreement were: Funding, Review of laws that impinge on university autonomy,
Earned allowances to
entitled academic staff, etc.
· On Funding, the FG
AGREED with ASUU that the sum of One trillion,
five hundred and eighteen billion, three hundred and thirty one million, five
hundred and forty five thousand three hundred and four naira (N1,518,331,545,304:00) would be required in three
years and
distributed as follows: 2009
(N472,031,575,919),
2010
(N497,531,778,701)
& 2011
(N548,768,190,681).
·To provide the Fund (N1,518,331,545,304:00) as agreed, the FG was to ensure that (a) a minimum of 26% of the
annual budget is allocated to education. Other funding
sources identified were Education Tax Fund, Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF),
Patronage of University
Services,
Funds from Alumni
Associations,
Private Sector Contributions,
etc.
·As at date, JAF makes bold to state that
the FG has refused to IMPLEMENT the Agreement, whose funding component ought to
have been concluded in 2011. Instead, what the FG tries to smartly cover up and
deceive the general public, in the guise of Government’s being BROKE, is to
provide N100bn out of the agreed N1.518trillion. The other N30bn the FG said it has also
approved is said to be for the earned allowances of N92bn it owed. This is the
fallacy of the N130bn the FG claimed it has approved for immediate release.
·The general public should know that the
N92bn in question is the legitimately earned allowances of academic and
non-academic staff for three and half years.
·It is equally important to state that
Funds are never released to ASUU or any of the other unions in the education
sector. Funds are directly released to the management of the various
institutions. The issue therefore should be clear that Government should
IMPLEMENT the agreement.
FG IS NOT BROKE!
5. It is important for JAF to
state clearly that the FG is not broke. The import of the Minister of Finance
and Coordinating Minister of all Ministers – Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s
statement is that the FG is irresponsible to Education and social welfare of Nigerians
but it is not broke to pay IMF and World Bank hundreds of billions annually to
service external debt.
- The FG is BROKE because Mrs. Iweala is playing the script of the IMF and World Bank to facilitate the looting of Nigerian resources into the coffer of foreign capital. It is an agenda that was pioneered by the Obasanjo military regime in 1978 when the first JUMBO LOAN was taken to put Nigeria into the club of debt enslavement.
- The FG was not BROKE for Mrs. Iweala to facilitate the “ACT TO AUTHORISE THE ISSUE FROM THE TIIE CONSOLIDATED REVENUE OF THE FEDERATION THE TOTAL SUM OF (N1,612,000,000,000.00) ONE TRILLION, SIX HUNDRED AND TWELVE BILLION NAIRA OR EQUIVALENT TO (US $12,400,000,000.00) TWELVE BILLION, FOUR HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS ONLY FOR PAYMENT OF OUTSTANDING DEBT OWED TO THE PARIS CLUB OF CREDITORS through the 2006 ACT No. 5 dated 17th Day of December, 2005.
- The FG was not broke when Mallam Lamido Sanusi CBN Governor bailed out failed banks (Oceanic, Intercontinental, etc) with N620 billion of PUBLIC FUND to private selfish businesses.
- The FG was not broke when Mrs. Iweala admitted that N2.6trillion was paid as fuel subsidy for un-delivered fuel in 2012 to the cronies of the presidency.
DARE TO STRUGGLE, DARE
TO WIN!
Comrade ABIODUN AREMU
JAF Secretary
08033347962
