Civil right groups under the aegis of Joint
Action Front (JAF) today took to the streets
of Abeokuta in protest against the continued
face-off between the Federal Government
and the Academic Staff Union of Universities,
ASUU. Protesters gathered as early as 7 a.m., at the
NNPC Mega Station junction along IBB
Boulevard from where they marched to
Kuto and linked Kemta area where the
leader of the group, Dr. Dipo Fashina,
addressed them. They later marched from Sapon to Ibara area. The protest tagged: ‘Protest to Save Public
Education,’ witnessed the display of various
placards with inscriptions like ‘Save our
future, don’t gamble with our lives,’
‘Education is our right,’ ‘Jonathan, you are
sleeping over this matter too much,’ ‘Our leaders are our problem,’ ‘Okonjo-Iweala, a
liar; FG is not broke,’ among others. Chairperson of JAF, Dr. Dipo Fashina, while
addressing the protesters said: “To save
public education is to insist that
governments in Nigeria fund education in
line with the 26 percent of national budget
as recommended by the United Nations and make education tuition free at all levels.
Funding of education adequately means the
repair and building of new infrastructure in
primary, secondary and tertiary institutions
and the provision of up-to-date facilities. “The Federal Government operates anti-
poor policies and this is clearly expressed in
their lack of disposition to public education.
Funding of public education is not given the
proper priority it deserves, because the
children of those in government and their friends are being trained in private schools in
Nigeria and foreign countries with the
looted public funds. Nigerians must know
that the politicians, top civil servants, some
traditional rulers and their cronies of
contractors and patrons were beneficiaries of public education. “Some of them set up private schools and
universities in Nigeria and abroad with stolen
funds from public coffers. “That is why none of their children are in
any public schools in Nigeria. That also
explains why they are not bothered when
public schools are shut and pupils and
students have to remain at home for as long
as the unions are frustrated to resume without government acceeding to their
legitimate demands,” he stated. Fashina said government should be blamed
for all the crises in the education sector,
including the incessant strikes, adding that
the unions in the education sector were not
making fresh demands. “They are on strike because governments,
both at the Federal and State levels, have
failed to implement agreements they freely
entered into and signed with the unions. For
example, the Nigeria Union of Teachers
(NUT) has been on a number of strikes since 2009 because government failed to
implement the Teacher Special Scale (TSS)
that was a product of an agreement with
government in 1992. “The polytechnics were shut for almost
three months because of the failure by
government to implement the 2009
agreement on the creation of a National
Polytechnic Commission that will regulate
education standards in the polytechnics, non-commencement of the renegotiation of
the FGN/ASUP agreement, as contained in
the signed 2009 agreement and failure by
the Federal Government to release the
White Paper on the visitations to the
polytechnics. “Colleges of Education started their warning
strike on 9 September because of
government’s refusal to implement the
2010 agreement, to carry out NEEDS
Assessment of Colleges of Education, and to
commence re-negotiation of the agreement. Equally, ASUU has been on strike since 1
July because government failed to honour
agreement signed in 2009. “The 2009 agreement with ASUU was on
funding facilities and infrastructure in the
universities to ensure the revitalisation of
the facilities and academic programmes. “Implementation of the NEEDS Assessment
Report as agreed in the MOU of 24 January,
2012 between the Federal Government and
ASUU on the standardisation and effective
running of the universities; and failure to pay
legitimately earned allowances of the academic and non-academic staff,” Fashina
added.
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