The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has stated that the Federal Government’s seven percent budget allocation to education in 2025 will not bring any significant change to the sector.
This declaration was made in a statement signed by Professor Ayo Akinwole, chairman of the University of Ibadan chapter, on Wednesday, January 1, 2025.
Akinwole highlighted that the poor welfare conditions of public university lecturers are causing reluctance among qualified individuals to take up jobs in the university system.
The statement read in part:
“The result of this has been the proliferation of private schools, most of which are out of reach for the poor due to the exorbitant fees they charge.
The university system witnessed stagnation in 2024, but for the sacrifices of the lecturers, the university system would have been thrown into another industrial crisis because of the Federal Government’s lackluster attitude towards the plights of lecturers.
Nigeria’s education is likely to remain the same because it has been allocated about seven percent (N3.52 trillion) in the 2025 budget (N47.90 trillion), which falls far below the benchmark of 15%-20% educational budget for underdeveloped countries like Nigeria, specified by both UNESCO and the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), which has been advocated by our Union.
Since 2017, various committees had been put in place by the Government to renegotiate the agreement with ASUU.
For instance, the Babalakin-led Joint Renegotiation Committee was set up, followed by the Emeritus Professor Munzali Jubril-led Committee, and then the Late Professor Nimi Briggs-led Committee, which yielded a draft agreement between the Committee and ASUU in 2021.
Unfortunately, the Buhari administration refused to sign the agreement reached by a Committee it had set up.
It is, therefore, our opinion that instead of a fresh renegotiation of the agreement, the Tinubu-led administration should rather set in motion a process that will lead to the review and signing of the Nimi Briggs-led renegotiated draft agreement as a mark of goodwill and assured hope for Nigeria’s public universities.
This misbegotten policy will have huge and adverse implications for the university system in Nigeria. This is, no doubt, an attempt to destroy the major source of infrastructural funding for already struggling public tertiary institutions.
It is also an attempt to commodify university education in Nigeria.”
