Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), South West has vowed not to enter into another negotiation with federal government on the implementation of 2009 ASUU/FGN agreement.

The zonal chapter of the academic union led by its coordinator, Professor Akin Ajisegiri at a forum yesterday in Ibadan said with the seeming indifference of the government, all seemed set for the warning strike to be embarked upon on 26 September.

The leader who was flanked by the chairman of the union in the University of Ibadan, Dr. Ademola Aremu said the union had no option than to direct its members to commence the strike at the fixed date because the federal government seemed not bothered about the plight of the union.  Professor Ajisegiri said, “ASUU is now very worried. We are worried because almost all the other facets of Nigerian society do not see what we are seeing.

We  have been shouting and crying about this issue for years.

The prevailing situation in the society has vindicated our position. Nigerian state is not moving. Instead of progress what we see is stagnation. For how long are going to be like this?, he asked.

Continuing, he said, “ We know for a fact that the development of any nation can not go faster without the development of the educational sector. Education is the bedrock of every developmental stage and process in all civilized world. We are becoming so worried because the Nigeria state is becoming increasingly unsafe for anybody to live in.

We have all the indices. We are just not taking cognizance of them. For how long are we going to live in this type of fear. We have agitations everywhere. We all know that a hungry person is an angry person. People are hungry and people are angry. The level of anger determines the way we react”.

“ASUU has been crying about improvement in the level of funding for the education sector. UNESCO has suggested that 26% budgetary allocation be made for education. We are talking of the totality of education from pre-primary to the doctorate level because if your child is not properly prepared before he enters university, it would be garbage in garbage out”, he said.

Still fuming on the indifference of the government, he noted, “Despite the strikes, and agreements which caused a lot of uproar, denials of salaries and so on, instead of an increment of funding, what we have is consistent decrease.

In 2009, the allocation to education was around 10%, it dropped to 9% and it is now around 5% percent. The oldest university was given only 2billion intervention fund which is not much but there is a facelift in the university now”.