ASUU strike: Government to give universities N1.1tn in five years

Details of the highly confidential meeting
between President Goodluck Jonathan
and the leadership of Academic Staff
Union of Universities are gradually
coming out as a source has disclosed to
PUNCH newspaper on Tuesday evening that a major part of the agreement
reached by the parties during the
meeting was that the Federal
Government would spend N1.1tn in the
next five years to improve on the nation’s
Universities. Similar to DailyPost earlier report, the
source equally hinted that the strike
would be called off anytime next week. The source further disclosed that the
government’s team, led by President
Goodluck Jonathan has agreed to release
N220bn every year, into the sector,
starting from 2014. He added, “The
meeting should be
the longest that we have ever had on this
crisis, but I can tell you that both parties
were frank all through the discussions. “The parties also showed commitment
towards ending the crisis. The President
in particular showed that he was serious
about ending the strike and that was why
he offered to release over N1tn to the
universities in the next five years. “The money will be released on a yearly
basis at N220bn per annum beginning
from 2014. For the outgoing year, the
government will only release N100bn and
this has been processed.” He further affirmed that to ensure its
commitment to the agreement, the
government has equally accepted that
“the fund(N1.1tn) be domiciled at the
Central Bank of Nigeria” “The money will be released on a
quarterly basis to the universities. So,
there won’t be any problem about
funding the deal,” the source said. Possible joint guarantors of the
agreement, according to the source will
include, National Universities
Commission and the Trade Union
Congress, while the Minister of Education
will be the implementation officer.