Why the strike will still go on - ASUU Chairman explains

Here is an interview with the ASUU chairman UI chapter as published by Punch 

Apart from union activism what other work do you do...?I am a lecturer of the University of Ibadan, Department of Teacher Education and an Associate professor in the university.

How will you describe the attitude of President Goodluck Jonathan to the education in Nigeria?Everybody thought that President Goodluck Jonathan's academic qualification would be an advantage for Nigeria. this is the first time we are having a president who holds a PhD and we are hoping for the best. Being a Doctor of Philosophy puts you at the peak of academic achievement because other addition will come through promotion.
But we are not only disappointed but also let down. Even the military regimes that we all condemned supported education more than what we have under Jonathan.

What are the issues that led to this strike and confrontation with the Government?
If we go by the agreement that the Federal Government had with ASUU in 2009 and the MoU signed by the FG on January 24, 2012, you will discover that the critical issue is the funding of federal universities in Nigeria. There is a need for substantial amount of money to be injected into the universities to acheive total revitalization and the two parties agreed on this. It was agreed in 2009  that a sum of N1.5trn would be required to fund the 24 federal universities then. It was also greed that we will look at the number of students in stat universities to determine how much would be needed to intervene.

With the 2012 MoU the FG agreed that it would inject N1.3trn over three years into the universities. The modality for the payment of money was that N100bn would be spent in 2012 which would rise to N400bn annually for the next three years.
When ASUU was making claims about the issue of funding universities, the government did not trust us, so it set up a committee to verify the claims. The National Economic Empowerment Development Assessment Committee report justified our claims and when it was being presented to the Federal Executive Council, Jonathan said all the state governors must see the report. The NEEDS Assessment Technical Committee set up on the report said N800bn is required over two years to fund the schools. By now, the FG should have put in N500bn as intervention fund for federal universities if the MoU of 2012 was respected.
Critical to the issue in contention also is the Earn Allowances  this was part of the 2009 agreement but in 2012, the FG said the implementation committee should calculate how much is required to pay the allowance of all staff of federal universities. The committee said N92bn is required to pay the money over two and a half years period. The Government is deceiving Nigerians by saying that it has released the money already. Out of the Money, N55bn will go to academic staff the rest would go to non-academic staff.

With your members' salaries suspended, who is funding ASUU and how are your  members surviving?

To be continued