…Says Part Of N8tr Overhead Cost Can Pay Lecturers
By Inusa Ndahi, Maiduguri
The senator representing Borno South in the upper chamber of the National Assembly, Mohammed Ali Ndume, has asked the Federal Government to resolve the prolonged labour dispute with the Academic Staff Union of University, ASUU, to prevent a total collapse of the university system.
Ndume gave the warning yesterday in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, in an interview with journalists.
He said, “The ASUU issue is far from being over. The Federal Government should resolve it now before the collapse of the university system. Those who are currently handling the negotiation can’t resolve the issue, because their interests are not affected.”
He informed that the public officers or political office holders negotiating with ASUU should not have been allowed to continue the negotiation process since their children are not in the public universities in the country.
Ndume said that rationale behind his speaking out now is to clear his conscience and for the sake of posterity, imploring the government to act in the interest of the public.
He also asked the government to issue an executive order forbidding public officials from sponsorship of their children abroad or in private universities.
Decrying the payment of half salary to varsity lecturers as unjust and inhuman, Ndume averred that N1 trillion of the N8 trillion budgeted as recurrent expenditure or overhead cost to public servants in the 2023 appropriation, could have settled the salaries of the lecturers and other requests.
Ndume said there was no justification for government not to pay full salary, recalling that public servants were paid their salaries while at home during COVID-19.
“After all, we in the National Assembly don’t work all the days, yet we are paid full salaries,” he said.
He therefore urged the government to constitute a committee of eminent Nigerians to bring back ASUU to the table and resolve the lingering dispute, noting that neither the Minister of Labour nor the National Assembly leadership can address the problem, because “their interests are not affected.”
