“ASUU strike won’t happen… funds are available” — Ngige tells Nigerians

The minister of labor, Chris Ngige, has revealed that the strike threatened by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) will not happen because there are funds available.

On Monday, ASUU issued a three-week ultimatum to the federal government to implement an earlier agreement with the union.

In an interview with the TV channel on Tuesday, Ngige said that the university funds are available.

“The strike will not happen. For one, I know that the funds to pay are there and the ministry of education has assured me that by tomorrow, they will emanate letters to make sure that the disbursement reaches the accounts of the various universities,” he said.

“We are not paying the unions directly, so it will get to the universities’ accounts.”

During the show, the minister said that the country’s education level is declining and the government cannot fund the sector alone.

“The state of education here is not anything for anyone to cheer about. The standard has fallen. I agree, but education can’t be funded by the government alone,” he said.

“I know that because I schooled here in Nigeria. I did my primary education here, secondary school education, university here in Nsukka, Enugu.

“I did my postgraduate outside the country but I can tell you very simply that in other climes, education is not only done by the government.

“In my university days, we had people who were on what they called indigent loans. If your parents can’t pay school fees, then you are called an indigent student and you get a loan —repayable loan from the loan board.

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“Then you have those who are on bursary — 50-50. You also pay back something. You have people who are on scholarships.

“I enjoyed the federal government scholarship and I left it to go into my east-central state scholarship which was bigger in quantum of money and was even paying for books for us.

“So, you could then see that we didn’t leave education only for the government. People were paying and they were paying a fee you can call appropriate fee at that time.”