While reacting to the dangers of the ongoing ASUU stike on tertiary education in Nigeria, the Save Public Education Campaign has threatened to lead a mass protest over the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike.
Vivian Bello who is the Convener of the group had told reporters on Monday that the plight of Nigerian students was worrisome.
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Noting that education is non-negotiable, she said the insecurity in Nigeria “is traceable to the failure of the education sector”.
Bello decried “the near-total collapse of tertiary education” in the country.
She had also listed terrible welfare, university autonomy and lack of adequate funding for universities as some of the issues.
Bello noted that ASUU has been on strike for over 725 days since the beginning of the Buhari administration.
“This amounts to an entire two and half years’ loss in the educational lives of innocent Nigerian children/students in public universities.
“The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics and Colleges of Education, ASUP and COEASU are all also currently on strike on similar issues as ASUU.”
Bello warned that an “all-round collapse of tertiary education” is imminent if the situation is not fixed urgently.
The group charged the government to devote more attention and resources needed to tackle the industrial action.
The co-convener, Dimeji Macaulay said they were waiting for the outcome of the ASUU meeting with the government before declaring a 14-day ultimatum.
The consistency of strikes has caused students to engage in criminal activities, Macaulay added.
In a new announcement which was put out by the organisation, the head council of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has made some suggestions that the method to resolving its ongoing strike action could be done with the full adoption of the transparent payment platform, University Transparency and Accountability Solutions (UTAS) which would be used as an alternative to IPPIS.
The Chairperson of ASUU, Federal University Otuoke, Bayelsa State chapter, Dr Socrates Ebo had in a statement which he had put out made the lamentations that the deep-rooted penchant for corruption within the Nigerian government ethos is all out to frustrate its deployment, while narrating that UTAS has been proven to be a flawless payment platform.
According to Dr Socrates Ebo, the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), has also been decisively proven to be a porous, easily compromised payment platform.
The chairperson opined that the IPPIS has been ineffective in curtailing waste of resources, while stressing that on the contrary it has been used to pad some of the payrolls and used to affect all manner of fraudulent deductions from workers’ salaries.
