Dr. Ikechukwu Igwenyi, Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities at Ebonyi State University, has said that the country’s state-owned universities cannot exist without cooperating with the Union for support and intervention.
He said this while reiterating that the local ASUU chapter was still participating in the strike that had been authorized by the union’s national leadership.
In an interview with our correspondent in Abakaliki on Monday night, he made this claim.
He said that the Tertiary Education Trust Fund’s intervention and the ASUU struggle were responsible for 98% of what the universities enjoy now.
“That rumour going on that some state universities want to break up from the ongoing industrial action by the ASUU is baseless. If any university tries it, such institution will still run back to ASUU because 98 per cent of the structures and equipment being enjoyed today in all the state universities are courtesy of the TETFUND and NEEDS Assessment via the ASUU struggle,” he said.
“There are many universities that have tried it before now to separate themselves from ASUU, but it didn’t work out. Obafemi Awolowo University and the University of Ilorin tried it before but later ran back to its source of livelihood which is ASUU.
“If the state universities have the same visitors as Federal universities, it would have been easier, but as long as we have different visitors in the state universities with their different priorities not having any regard for the education of the poor masses, it will never work,” he explained.
He added, “Yes, people said EBSU is in session. But it’s lie. The authorities did that to deceive the students, so that those students can come and pay school fees for them (the authorities) to pay salaries. But after that, those students were left to their own fate. We didn’t pull out of the strike. We are still part of it and it’s still ongoing.
“And no state government in Nigeria pays 100 per cent of the workers’ salaries.
Instead, workers’ salaries come mostly from the Internally Generated Revenue of the school.
“The best the state governments have done so far is to subvert the universities. In Ebonyi State University for example, the state government gives monthly subvention of N150 million and takes N30 million up front as tax, leaving the university with N119 million.
“How can such university pay salaries when it needs to get over ₦260 million monthly to be able to pay their workers.”
