Former Senate Leader, Senator Ali Ndume, has urged the Federal Government to slash the big salaries of members of the National Assembly members by 50 percent and deploy the excess funds to the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), to address their pressing demands.
Ndume made the call while reacting to the half salary issue that has pitched members of the Union and the government in a recent interaction with journalists in Maiduguri and advised President Muhammadu Buhari-led government to set up a committee of respected educationists and patriotic Nigerians to meet with the ASUU leadership to tackle lingering burning issues.
He said: “Even if it means that the National Assembly will reduce sitting allowances or be paid on casual allowances basis whenever they sit at the Lower and Upper chambers, by cutting the recurrent expenditure in the budget of the federal lawmakers to settle the ASUU arrears, let it be. It will be in the overall national interest of Nigerians.
“If you can spend N8.3 trillion on public servants, why don’t you spend N1trillion in public universities?
“We only assemble twice or so per week and get paid as such. Civil servants who worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic and were paid their full salaries and allowances monthly.
“So why will the federal government cut university lecturers’ salaries because they went on legitimate strike? Constitutionally, they are fighting for their rights and privileges.
“As a matter of priority and as a public servant in the legislative chambers, we don’t work; so why don’t you just give us half salary and then pay ASUU?
“It is high time they resolve the issue once and for all even if they have to borrow or make supplementary budgets.
“We are budgeting N20.5 trillion for 2023, I don’t see any reason why the government will not budget one trillion to address the lingering challenges of the education sector including ASUU strikes.
“Eight months, students were at home doing nothing and they are the public and we are the public servants. In the budget for 2023, the overhead is 43 percent.
“Some of those involved in the negotiations do not have children in public universities.
“How can you be talking about something that you have no stake in? I don’t have a child in public schools, all my children are schooling outside the country; most politicians are like that too and they are the ones negotiating.
“With this to me, we will not get anywhere. Even if we got somewhere it will be temporary because other people will be playing in the gallery.
“Some of them will be claiming to be defending the interest of the federal government and the others will be pretending to be defending the interest of the masses and at the end, they are only playing to the gallery.”
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