“The Military Regimes Were More Understanding Of Difficulties Faced By Lecturers” – ASUU

Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, the President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has stated that past administrations were more understanding of the difficulties faced by lecturers.

Osodeke discussed some of their experiences living under military governments while speaking during the unveiling of 50 tertiary textbooks written by Nigerian authors and sponsored by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) on Thursday, January 5.

He said; “Thank you very much for this honourable minister and all of us who are present here today. I want to thank my colleagues for raising the issues and I think it is very important. I will just say a little thing about what is TETFUND and how did it originate?

“In 1992, the union was on strike and negotiating; how we used to do then few years ago with Obafemi and co, and when we finished, the government said how can we fund it and we said challenge us, we will tell you how to fund this agreement. And they challenged ASUU, it didn’t take three days and we came up with the idea of TETFUND, which was accepted by the government, and then the military.

“I have seen that the military is even more sympathetic. Then TETFUND came into place. The decree was signed in 1993. ASUU had to go on strike the third time to ensure that the TETFUND board is funded and the money was released.”

Commenting on the Federal Government’s “no work, no pay” stance toward lecturers on strike, which has led to eight months of unpaid salary, Osodeke urged Nigerians to put pressure on the government to prevent the collapse of tertiary education.

The ASUU President also criticized some large corporations and well-off Nigerians for their poor attitudes toward paying education taxes, calling for a rise in the levy from the current 2.5 per cent to 10 per cent to enable TETFund to raise more money to fully address difficulties facing the sector.

Osodeke argued that the education tax net needs to be repositioned and expanded to provide greater funding for tertiary education institutions.