Strike: SERAP tells Buhari to redirect presidency, NASS, others’ budget to meet ASUU’s demands

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to “urgently recover missing N105.7bn of public funds from ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to meet the demands of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

The organization also requested the president to fund the country’s public tertiary institutions and improve the welfare of staff members.

SERAP had threatened to sue Buhari-led adminstration over its lack of concern for the affairs of tertiary institutions in the country.

In a letter dated July 2, 2022 and signed by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare, SERAP said: “Meeting the demands by ASUU would confront the persistent and widening inequality in educational opportunity, and promote equal protection for poor Nigerian children.”

The letter read in part: “The apparent failure by your government to agree with the reasonable demands by ASUU, implement the good faith agreement with the union and to satisfactorily resolve the issues has kept poor Nigerian children at home while the children of the country’s politicians attend private schools.

“The poor treatment of Nigerian children in the country’s public tertiary institutions is inconsistent and incompatible with the Nigerian Constitution and the country’s international human rights obligations.”

“Widening inequalities in the area of education bear all the more dramatic consequences given the importance of education, as an empowering right, in giving the possibility to all to explore and realise their potential.

“Apart from being a right in itself, the right to education is also an enabling right. Education creates the ‘voice’ through which rights can be claimed and protected, and without education people lack the capacity to achieve valuable functioning as part of the living.”

“If people have access to education they can develop the skills, capacity and confidence to secure other rights. Education gives people the ability to access information detailing the range of rights that they hold, and government’s obligations.

Read also: SERAP to sue Buhari over lingering ASUU strike, says it’s ‘crime against humanity’

“We would be grateful if the recommended measures are taken within seven days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter. If we have not heard from you by then, SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions to compel your government to comply with our request in the public interest.

“Recovering the missing N105.7bn of public funds and redirecting the funds, as well as some parts of the presidency and National Assembly budgets to meet the demands by ASUU would end the protracted negotiations between ASUU and the Federal Government and improve access of poor children to education.

“Recovering the missing N105.7bn of public funds and redirecting the funds, as well as some parts of the presidency and National Assembly budgets to meet the demands by ASUU would also be in the public interest.

“Recovering the missing N105.7bn of public funds and redirecting the funds, as well as some parts of the presidency and National Assembly would be entirely consistent with your constitutional oath of office, and with the letter and spirit of the Nigerian Constitution, as it would promote equal opportunities for poor children who rely on public schools and have no opportunity for university education elsewhere.”

The ASUU embarked on strike in February, accusing the government of poor commitment to the payment of academic earned allowance (EAA) poor funding, the use of the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System and refusal to adopt the Universities Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS), among others.

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