Afenifere group blasts Jonathan on ASUU strike, education funding

The Afenifere Renewal Group says federal
government is insensitive to the needs of
the education sector.
The Afenifere Renewal Group has berated
the federal government over their
“insensitivity” to the education sector.
In a statement signed by Kunle Famoriyo,
the group’s Publicity Secretary, the
Yoruba socio-political body urged the
National Assembly to activate its
oversight functions and unravel the
reason for discrepancy between
budgetary allocation and policy
implementation in the sector.
“We want to point out that federal
government has never taken any
conscious step to drive growth in our
tertiary education system and the little
improvement since 1999 is attributable to
forced action from strikes. Is strike the
only way to get government’s attention?”
asked the group.
The industrial action embarked upon by
the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU) has entered its seventh week.
The union is protesting the non-
implementation of the agreement it
reached with the federal government over
the funding of Nigerian universities.
The Afenifere group said that the “simple
task” of implementing the 2009
agreement is now difficult for the
government.
“How can we make progressive
development as a nation if each
administration keeps bringing new
policies at the expiration of one?
“Part of that agreement provides for
progressive increase of annual budgetary
allocation to education up to 26 per cent
between 2009 and 2020.
“To annually increase budgetary
allocation to education is difficult for a
government that has been faithful in
implementing the Multi Year Tariff Order,
which stipulated that electricity tariff
should be increased annually as from
2012 till 2016.
“It makes no sense that government is
increasing electricity tariff and fuel prices
and collecting taxes from citizens, whose
children it cannot properly educate,” he
said.
The group further noted that although the
education sector got the highest
percentage budgetary allocation in the
2013 Appropriation Act, it had not
translated into tangible results in federal
tertiary institutions.
“The sector got N367.375 billion for
recurrent expenditure, N60.207 billion for
capital expenditure. This translates to a
total of N427.582 billion representing
7.9% of total budget. In 2012, the sector
got a total of N397.378 billion
representing 8.5% of total budget.
“Despite these high allocations, the sector
has seen no improvement, an evidence of
government’s insensitivity to the plight of
the people and its ineptitude in managing
the nation’s resources for the greater
good,” it said.
The group stated that despite primary
schools and secondary being the direct
responsibilities of local and state
governments respectively; the federal
government has found it hard to pay
lecturers’ salaries.
“Such is the level of neglect of public
education that private institutions are
cashing in on government’s ineptitude,
which also manifested recently when
federal government praised itself for
improved performances in WASSCE – an
accolade that rightly belongs to
governors,” it said.