The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Wednesday, said it does not believe that there is anything called fuel subsidy in Nigeria.

The academic union said Nigeria can’t be exporting crude oil for more than 70 years and still can’t refine crude oil and sell it to people at the Nigerian rate and not the dollar.

The President of ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke stated this in Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike, Ikwo (AEFUNAI), Ikwo local government area of Ebonyi State during the university’s ASUU maiden Public Lecture and groundbreaking ceremony of its Secretariat in the university.

Speaking on the theme of the Public Lecture, “Reinventing Nigerian Universities for Research and Development: The ASUU Perspective,” Osodeke noted that Nigerian leaders refused to prioritize education which was why the nation was in crisis.

“Any country that doesn’t prioritize education is set for a crisis where we are today because our leaders in the past 20,25 years had not taken education seriously and that’s why we are where we are today.

“We don’t believe there is fuel subsidy. You can’t be exporting crude oil for more than 70 years and still can’t refine crude oil and sell it to your people at the Nigerian rate, not at a dollar.

”Then, something is wrong. There is no subsidy. It’s not a rocket sign to build a refinery.

“They deliberately refused to maintain the one they have, meanwhile people are being paid. Nigeria has made trillions of naira in the past three years or so on the renovation of refinery and none is working. Niger here and other small countries have functional refineries”, he stated.

On his part, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi, the immediate past President of ASUU who was the Guest Lecturer during the Lecture said the country have an environment that is hostile to workers, intellectuals and students.

He called on the federal government to resuscitate the negotiation process on how to arrest the brain drain in the country and restore quality in the nation’s university system which was aborted by the immediate past Minister of Labour, Dr Chris Ngige.

He said “Engage lecturers, engage stakeholders. We have several reports on ground that have not been implemented. ASUU was negotiating with the government on how to arrest brain drain, how to restore quality, and how to revamp the facility. We did it for more than six years, Dr Chris Ngige aborted it.

“Now, there is a new government in place. We hope the new government will resuscitate the process so that we can put a closure to a process that has dragged on for more than seven years.”

“It’s never done. You engage people for six years, at the point of signing the agreement, you threw it overboard. It is anti-labour, it’s not a labour-friendly behaviour and when you can’t realize your dream, you fight with your feet.

“So, we have an environment that is hostile to workers, hostile to intellectuals, not friendly even to students. So, everybody is on the edge; the policies are unfriendly, the income is unsustainable, and the environment is dilapidating.

“This is a university, will you take this as a university compare to a university in another country? Go to Tanzania, go to South Africa, a university environment will not look like this and you want to produce world-class graduates. So, we need to rethink our approach to education”.

ASUU AEFUNAI Chairperson and Chairman of NLC in the state, Professor Oguguo Egwu described ASUU as a strong union in the struggle for a better Nigeria. He called on the members to ensure that the union remains very strong and united. (New Telegraph)

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