The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) yesterday, protested in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State capital, and threatened to shut down activities in the private universities in the country if the Federal Government failed to comply with the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the strike lingered.
Speaking on behalf of his colleagues, Asafon Sunday, Director of Action and Mobilisation NANS, South–West, claimed between 2000 and 2011 the Nigerian government earned about N48.48 trillion from the sale of oil alone, against N3.10 trillion earned between 1979 and 1999.
He said the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, in 2012 financial year alone generated N5.12 trillion from tax paid by the masses.
Sunday noted that some countries with smaller Gross Domestic Product, GDP, like Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Morocco and Botswana had budgetary allocations to education sector as follow, 31 per cent,20 per cent,23 per cent ,17.7 per cent and 19 per cent respectively to 8.5 per cent that Nigeria government had budgeted for education in 2013.
According to him: “With this tremendous upswing in the revenue at the disposal of the Nigerian government, one would have expected such to translate to commensurate improvement in the quality of Nigeria’s public education as well as other social services.”He condemned the refusal of Federal Government to budget a reasonable amount of money to education sector as recommended by UNESCO which is 26 per cent of the country’s total budget.
The students who displayed several placards with various inscriptions, lambasted the Federal Government for its failure to honour the agreement it entered into with ASUU since 2009.
Source: Citizenng
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