Government May Shut Down If All ASUU Demands Are Met – Maku

If the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU) and other sectors in the country insist
on the total resolution of their problems,
government activities in the country risk eing
shut down, the Minister of Information, Mr.
Labaran Maku, yesterday, said.
Fielding questions from State House
correspondents at the end of the weekly
Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting
yesterday, Maku noted that the federal
government had spent a lot on the
development of tertiary education across the
country.
Maku, who said the government wants to
forge a good working relationship with the
union appealed to ASUU to have a rethink on
its demands by taking into consideration the
fact that there are many competing demands
on the federal government from other sectors.
Maku blamed the paucity of funds at the
moment on activities of Islamist insurgents in
the northern part of the country, on which he
said the federal government is spending a
huge amount of money to restore normalcy,
stating that much would have been done to
upgrade the education sector if not for that.
"If we say every particular problem we face in
this country, we will not work until it is
resolved, then I'm sure there is no sector that
will work," Maku stressed, pointing out that if
all unions insisted on solving all their
problems, the country would stop working.
"We are partners with ASUU. We are friends.
They are our patriots and we understand the
critical role that the university teachers are
playing to create a new society that we are
hoping to have.
"But at the same time, this is the reality that
we need to look at and we have to put the
nation first," the Maku said.
He acknowledged that every sector required
more from the system "but the truth is that
there are limitations and from the limitations
we have, we believe that ASUU really needs to
have a rethink and ensure that we reopen our
universities because we are feeling the pain of
our children being at home and this indeed is
completely avoidable."
According to Maku, government's attempt in
2010 to increase public salaries by 53.4 per
cent left a huge deficit in the annual budget,
but despite that, it had made giant strides in
improving tertiary education.
"I just want to say that it is unfortunate that
our students are still at home. It is very sad
because the federal government has done so
much in the last three years for education," he
said, listing the completion of 37 projects in
the University of Benin, multiple ongoing
projects in the University of Port Harcourt,
University of Jos, as wellas many polytechnics
and colleges of education that have been
funded.
"Government has priorities. Education remains
the number one priority and will continuously
remain the number one priority of a
developing country like Nigeria.
"There is no way we can avoid it, the quality of
human capital is going to determine the future
of our country. But at the same time, when
you look at the environment today, we are
dealing with the question of power, railway
that had broken down years ago.
"We are dealing with the issue of roads, of
creating the enabling environment for
industries to prosper. There is no area today
that you touch that you do not have some
urgency for government to deal with," he said.