Senator Ali Ndume (APC-Borno South) has called for a 50 percent slash in the salaries of federal lawmakersby half to meet the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities,(ASUU).
He made the call in Maiduguri on Thursday while reacting to the October half-pay for the academic staff.
The former Senate Leader advised the federal government to constitute a high-powered standing committee of respected educationists and patriotic Nigerians to meet with ASUU’s leadership to address the lingering issue.
“Even if it means that the National Assembly will reduce sitting allowances or be paid on a casual allowance basis whenever they sit at the lower and upper chambers, by cutting the recurrent expenditure in the budget of the federal lawmakers to settle the ASUU arrears, let it be,” he said.
“It will be in the overall national interest of Nigerians.
“We only assemble twice or so per week and get paid as such.
“Civil servants worked from home during the COVID-19 pandemic and were paid their full salaries and allowances monthly.
“So why will the federal government cut university lecturers' salaries because they went on legitimate strike?”
Senator Ndume wondered why the federal government did not prioritize ASUU’s demands when working on the 2023 budget.
“We are budgeting 20.5 trillion for 2023, I don’t see any reason why the government will not budget one trillion to address the lingering challenges of the education sector including ASUU strikes.
“Eight months, students were at home doing nothing and they are the public and we are the public servants.
“In the budget of 2023, the overhead is 43 percent.
“If you can spend N8.3 trillion on public servants why don’t you spend N1 trillion on public universities?
“Some of those involved in the negotiations do not have children in public universities.
“How can you be talking about something that you have no stake in?” he asked.
“I don’t have a child in public schools, all my children are schooling outside the country; most politicians are like that too and they are the ones negotiating.”
