No Sigh Of Relief For Varsities, As NASU Vows To Continue Strike

The Non-Academic Staff Union of Educationaal and Associated Institutions (NASU), has insisted on continuing with it strike action unless the Federal government  urgently meet their demands.

The Union accused the Federal Government of refusing to demonstrate commitment to adequate funding of tertiary education in the country, describing the situation as very unfortunate.

Speaking yesterday in Abuja at the National Executive Council meeting, Comrade Chris Any, the National President of the union said the union  is determined to continue with the strike for as long as Government remains unconcerned

He said, “We equally call on the Federal Government to without waste of time respond positively to all the demands of the unions with a view to ensuring that the strike ends without any further delay. We are however determined to continue with the struggle for as long as Government remains unconcerned.

“We are using this medium of the meeting of our National Executive Council to reiterate our unflinching support for NASU members in all the Universities nationwide in the ongoing struggle for the actualisation of the Memorandum of Understanding as enumerated earlier.”

Accorsing to him, a close look at the 2017 Federal budget shows that a mere 6% was the budgetary allocation to education, emphasizing that this is grossly inadequate and a far cry from the UNESCO prescription of 26% of the National budget to education.

He said, “Worst still is the failure of Government to fulfill the content of its Memorandum of Understanding with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) whereby it promised to release intervention fund of N220billion per annum for 2014, 2015 and 2016.”

He went expalined that “Government only released N200billion intervention fund in 2013 while the releases for 2014 to date remain outstanding. This in itself is another clear indication that our Government is not committed to the funding of education.

“Even as we hold this meeting, the Federal government has refused to release its White paper on the report of the Needs Assessment Committee for Polytechnics and Colleges of Education.”

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