ASUU Blasts Okonjo-Iweala –– "You Are Deceiving Nigerians"

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, said the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is lying to the entire nation. 

“This is a government that signed an agreement with us on January 24, 2012 to the effect that they would inject N100 billion as funding into the universities in the first one month and that before the end of 2012, they would inject another N300 billion. The same government did not put down a kobo to any of these universities. 

“So, it is a sad story that we are hearing now that the government cannot meet a demand of N87 billion whereas the government said that they would keep on putting N400 billion annually for three years consecutively to the tune of about N1.2 trillion. If the government is now saying it cannot meet N87billion, Nigerians should know that this is not a government that can be trusted for anything.

ASUU described as a misrepresentation of facts, the comment made by Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, that the striking university lecturers demanded N92 billion as earned allowances in the 2009 agreement.

Speaking through Chairman of University of Ibadan chapter, Dr. Olusegun Ajiboye, ASUU said the Federal Government and the minister are not telling the truth.

In a statement, the union said: “I want Nigerians to ask the minister where she got her figure of N92 billion from. There was never a time that ASUU made a demand that is up to N92 billion. I think the 92 billion naira is just the imagination of the Minister of Finance and Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy.”

Dr. Ajiboye clarified the issue noting that the earned allowances jointly calculated with FG and ASUU in the 2009 agreement was N87 billion and it covers allowances for three and a half years for thousands of lecturers in Nigerian universities.

He stressed that the N87 billion was a compromise made by ASUU by scaling down from N127 billion to N87 billion.

Consequently, Dr Ajiboye called on Nigerians to join ASUU is saying NO to those whom he said were bent on destroying public institutions, because their children are not in Nigeria.