The striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has rejected the call by senators for it to call off the ongoing strike, saying the lawmakers should sacrifice part of their allowances for the rescue of the ailing education sector
The lecturers also advised senators to beg President Goodluck Jonathan to implement the agreement.
The National Treasurer of the union, Dr Demola Aremu gave the advice in reaction to the decision of the Senate to appeal and beg ASUU to return to class to save the education system.
Aremu recalled that it took ASUU and the Federal Government team led by Mr Gamaliel Onosode three years to arrive at the current agreement, pointing out that it is pretentious for any top government functionary to claim that the government negotiating team did not understand fully what they signed with the teachers.
According to him, ASUU went to the negotiation with a 300-page chatter which was reduced to a 60-page agreement after the union shifted so much ground on many of its demands.
He emphasized that it was President Goodluck Jonathan, who was then the Vice President that asked the government to sign the agreement after he thoroughly went through it for six months.
“He perused the draft agreement and asked the government team to sign every page of the document. Our President also signed it. The content of the agreement we have today is not what we took to the negotiation table. That shows Nigerians how greatly we shifted ground. So, the team knew what they went into.”
Aremu further explained that the Federal Government also came up with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the implementation of the agreement in January, last year. “So, if anyone assumes that they didn’t know what they were doing in 2009, did they also not know what they were doing in 2012? He queries.
The union leader compared the tertiary education on Nigeria today with a cancer patient, saying no palliative measure can help heal cancer, and that the patient will die.
He said: “Begging will not bring any solution. Nigerians should rather beg government to face this agreement squarely and implement it. That is where our future lies.”
He said senators can also cut down their allowances and contribute them to education for the benefit of all citizens.
