This response is not to trade words with him on the pages of our tabloids but to correct the intentional misinformation he passed to the public in a bid to poison the minds of the people and as well dodge the responsibility of calling out the government (where he once served as a minister) to do the needful.
To start with, the educational sector has not fared better under the current administration. Buhari’s government inherited a ludicrous budgetary allocation of 9% in the sector and reduced it to 7% in the present 2018 budget. This is a far cry from the UNESCO’s recommendation of 26% to which Nigeria is a signatory.
Since the inception of the current administration, there has been several untoward interferences by certain dramatis personae in the guise of ‘oversight’ functions in public universities and thus challenging the autonomy of universities in Nigeria.
These ‘dictations’ from various quarters are unwholesome for the smooth running of the universities and against global best practices. Since December 2015, workers in public universities (state and federal) have been plagued with a shortfall in salaries.
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Three years running, the same problem persists and Ekiti State University will rank high on the list of state universities with the shortfall problem as the university is owning workers five months unpaid salaries, fared better indeed! The governor may claim that the debt was inherited, but the clock is ticking.
The current salary of university workers took effect since 2009 and the government you are defending assumed office in 2015, so how could this government have affected/effected the salaries of Professors? Despite the fact that Nigerian workers are the least paid globally, the former minister mischievously insulted our Professors by reminding them of their salaries and comparing the same with his own.
This may be hilarious to some but to me it is unintelligent. Where did the governor source his information? The basic salary of a professor at bar (to his family) is less than 300,000 monthly and with his other allowances, he earns about 500,000 till he retires at 70 years. From these salary and allowances, he will pay tax, house rent, driver, domestic staff, contribute his pension deduction, fund his research and publications (this alone, the salary cannot handle!) etc.
You called for this and it is only civil you reciprocate by letting the public know the total figure of your salary after adding all the allowances and how many drivers, domestic staff, rent etc you pay from it and please be kind to let us know what a former governor gets in retirement after 4/8 years in office.
This government has not done anything worthy of praise in the public universities, rather it is fond of trading blame, abdicating responsibilities, dishonouring agreements, insensitivity to workers plight, intent to commercialise education and globe-trotting while the citizens are condemned to abject poverty. You may need to check the scorecard again and wake up from oblivion.
The intervention funds you are trying to claim does not belong to you! As always when it comes to funding university education, our government is perennially short of ideas until ASUU shows them how. ETF(now TETFUND) and NEEDS assessment are the brain products of ASUU and it predates the current administration. I am glad that with these ASUU initiated interventions, we still have a semblance of university education in the country as opposed to government’s intention of running them aground. Public Universities do not receive capital grants from the government.
Our call is that the government should fulfil the agreement it freely entered with the union and revitalize our university education.
Let me conclude by advising Mr Governor to focus on developing Ekiti State, the masses and the public university in his domain. When he has satisfactorily attended to these, he will have a different mindset if he is a sincere fellow.
and then