Give us N200bn from N4trn fuel subsidy money – ASUU to FG

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has asked the Federal Government to release N200 billion to it from the N4 trillion approved by the National Assembly for the government to pay subsidy on petrol in 2022.

ASUU said it will immediately call off its incessant strike if the Federal Government released the money to it to fund university education in Nigeria.

“Give us N200 billion from the N4 trillion fuel subsidy and we will suspend the strike immediately,” the union declared on its Twitter handle.

ASUU president, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, who made the declaration earlier in a television interview, accused the Federal Government of not giving priority to tertiary education.

According to him, the government had addressed the issue of fuel subsidy with a budget of N4 trillion, whereas, it ignored issues concerning university education.

Osodeke asked the government to take N200 billion from the N4 trillion budgeted for subsidy to address the challenges of its members, thereby putting an end to the industrial action embarked upon by the union.

READ: ASUU not asking for impossible – Ngige

“It is always funny that the government cannot raise N200 billion to revamp all Nigeria’s universities annually, to world standards. The same government can raise N4 trillion for fuel subsidy.

“You can raise a budget to make N4 trillion for subsidy in a year, but you cannot raise N200 billion to fund your education where you don’t have the infrastructure. You can spend N228 billion to feed children in primary or secondary schools but you cannot raise this fund for your university; it is an issue of priority. That is the problem.

“If you remove N200 billion from N4 trillion to fund your universities, you still have N3.8 trillion for fuel subsidy,” Osodeke said.

He added: “We don’t believe there is a fuel subsidy. There is no country where you have the crude intelligentsia. You have been importing fuel for the past 20 years; something is ongoing. No country in the world will do that. In the 60s, we built four refineries, and between 1999 and now, we cannot build one or service the ones we had.”