ASUU strike: ANAMBRA GOVERNOR threatens to resign

The Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, has said he will resign from office if it is established that his government has enough resources to meet the demands of the striking workers of the state university.   The governor spoke to reporters in Awka ahead of an enlarged opinion leaders’ meeting on Sunday in Enugu. The meeting was called to find solution to the strike by lecturers of the five state-owned universities in the South East.   He said the lecturers, who started the strike three months ago, could come and look at the books of government “to see if we can pay.”  

The Anambra State Government gives a monthly subvention of N50m to the university, whose wage bill and administrative cost is said to be well over N180m a month.  

Obi said the lecturers were uncharitable when they asked him to pay them from his monthly security votes, as he said he could account for 90 per cent of the security votes.  

Almost swearing, he declared, “They said I collect between N650m and N700m security votes. If I have collected one third of their claim I will resign and go. The books are open.”  

The governor said the agreement that ASUU was touting about was actually an agreement between the Federal Government and ASUU for implementation in federal universities.  

He said the agreement clearly stated that the states would have to negotiate with their respective universities. But he said ASUU had refused to make itself available for discussion, insisting that all they wanted was the implementation of the ASUU/Federal Government agreement.  

But the governor quickly said it must be understood that poor remuneration would negatively impact the quality of teaching in the university.  

 He said it was now up to ASUU to come forward to negotiate with the state government.

 “I welcome ASUU to look at our books. They don’t have to go on strike. Let them come and see if we can pay. The books are open. Let us see our revenue profile and see how we can accommodate everybody.”







“There is nowhere in the world where you can live above your means. We do not owe them. We are paying them what we promised them,” Obi said.





He said from the beginning, the state university was allowed to recruit its own members of staff and fix their pay. The state was just to give them a subvention.  







He said in addition to the subvention the state gives to the university, the state has also been carrying out capital projects, which he said the striking lecturers have failed to acknowledge, a contribution he said far outstripped the subvention to the university.  

Obi said of the N2bn his government received monthly, N1.5bn went into overhead costs, leaving a balance of N500m, “which is not enough to allow me take my security vote.”  

The governor said he did not mind if the university paid its workers N1m each, provided they could raise the money to pay themselves.  

He suggested that like in other parts of the country, the university could raise fees. If a student was to pay N100,000 per session, he said with a student population of 20,000, the university could raise N2bn in an instant.  

The university workers’ unions have however insisted that the governor has not been sincere in his claims, said the governor was running away from directly talking with them.   The Chairman of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, Mr. Vincent Asoegwu, said the governor had the demands of the workers before him.  

“Let him attend to it. He should take just a part of his security vote and fund the university,” he said, as he said the unions would not accept any increase ion fees to settle the demand of workers.