ASUU faults Okonjo-Iweala over N92bn demandby unionThe Academic Staff Union of Universitieshas described as a misrepresentation of facts, thecomment made by the Co-ordinating Minister of theEconomy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that the striking university lecturersdemanded N92 billion as earned allowances in the 2009 agreement. According to the union, which spoke through theChairman, University of Ibadan chapter, Dr.Olusegun Ajiboye, the Federal Government and theminister are not telling the truth. In a statement, the union said: “I want Nigerians toask the minister where she got her figure of N92billion from. There was never a time that ASUUmade a demand that is up to N92 billion. I think the92 billion naira is just the imagination of the Ministerof Finance and Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy.” Dr. Ajiboye clarified the issue noting that the earnedallowances jointly calculated with the FederalGovernment and ASUU in the 2009 agreement wasN87 billion and it covers allowances for three and ahalf years for thousands of lecturers in Nigerianuniversities. Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala He stressed that the N87 billion was a compromisemade by ASUU by scaling down from N127 billionto N87 billion. The university lecturer urged Nigerians to say no topeople whom he said were bent on destroyingpublic institutions. He said: “This is a government that signed anagreement with us on January 24, 2012 to theeffect that they would inject N100 billion as fundinginto the universities in the first one month and thatbefore the end of 2012, they would inject anotherN300 billion. The same government did not put down a kobo to any of these universities. “So, it is a sad story that we are hearing now thatthe government cannot meet a demand of N87billion whereas the government said that theywould keep on putting N400 billion annually forthree years consecutively to the tune of about N1.2trillion. If the government is now saying it cannot meet N87billion, Nigerians should know that this isnot a government that can be trusted for anything. “The total amount of earned allowances foracademic staff in Nigerian universities for the threeand a half years computed together with thegovernment was N87 billion. And that was agreedbased on negotiations because we started fromN127billion and it was reduced to N107 billion before we now got to 15 percent of salary paymentof each person. It is called earned allowances and itis the sum total of the excess work which academicstaff had done for the past three and a half years.You are now telling Nigerians that this is what thesepeople are asking for as if it’s a new thing. Nigerians should know that it is what the peoplehave worked for and not N92 billion. It is fallacyand what these people (federal government) arejust pushing is propaganda.”