The Academic Staff Union of Universities has denied ever demanding N92billion naira as earned allowances in the 2009 agreement from the federal government describing the coordinating Minister of the Economy Okonjo Iweala and federal government as liars.
The Union challenged the executive arm of government to publish how much it receives yearly as allowances for Nigerians to see those draining the resources of the country.
The Coordinating Minister of the Economy was reported as saying the federal government cannot meet the N92billion allowances being demanded by ASUU.
While reacting through a release in a statement issued by the University of Ibadan Chairman of ASUU, Dr Olusegun Ajiboye described the N92 billion naira mentioned by Dr Okonjo Iweala as concocted falsehood and a figment of imagination of the minister.
Dr Ajiboye who disclosed that the earned allowances jointly calculated with the federal government and ASUU in the 2009 agreement amounted to N87billion and covers allowances for three and half years for thousands of lecturers in Nigerians universities.
According to him, the N87 billion naira was a compromise made by ASUU by scaling down from N127billion naira to N87 billion naira.
The ASUU boss who asked Nigerians to rise against people who are bent on destroying public institutions such as the minister, alleged that the coordinating minister of the economy is an agent of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) planted in Nigeria government to destroy public institutions.
He disclosed that the N87billion naira was computed based on 15% of the annual recurrent expenditures of some Nigerian universities.
“I want Nigerians to ask the minister where she got her figure of N92 billion naira from. There was never a time that ASUU made a demand that is up to 92billion naira. I think the 92 billion naira is just the imagination of the minister of finance and co-ordinating minister of the economy. But that is not to say that this government did not enter into an agreement with us. This is a government that signed an agreement with us on January 24, 2012 to the effect that they will inject N100 billion as funding into the universities in the first one month and that before the end of 2012, they will inject another N300billion naira. The same government did not put down a kobo to any of these universities. So it a sad story that we are hearing now that the government cannot meet a demand of 87billion naira where as the government said that they will keep on putting N400 billion annually for three years consecutively to the tune of about 1.2trillion naira and if the government is now saying they cannot meet 87billion naira, Nigerians should know that this is not a government that can be trusted for anything. We see the minister herself as a mole in this government. She is planted by the IMF and World Bank to come and destroy public institutions in Nigeria. And so, we call on Nigerians to stand up against this kind of individuals. These characters are just there to destroy public heritage of this country. They do not care whatever happens to the generality of Nigerians. The total amount of earned allowances for academic staff in Nigerian universities for the three and a half years computed together with the government was N87 billion naira. And that was agreed at based on negotiations because we started from 127billion and it was reduced to 107 billion naira before we now got to 15 percent of salary payment of each. It is called earned allowances and it is sum total of the excess work which academic staff had done for the past three and a half years. You are now telling Nigerians that this what this people are asking for as if it’s a new thing. Nigerians should know that it is what the people have worked for and not N92 billion. It is fallacy and what these people (federal government) are just pushing is a propaganda. And Nigerians should not take to this propaganda. If you have worked for three years and half years and you have not been paid and somebody now wants to negotiate the payment of the job that you have done. I think this is unrealistic and its not acceptable.”
