![The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. [PHOTO CREDIT: Ehud Kaduna]](https://i0.wp.com/media.premiumtimesng.com/wp-content/files/2022/01/20200913_161409-scaled-e1652250793565.jpg?fit=2387%2C1702&ssl=1)
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, on Monday accused the Nigerian government of dashing the hopes of the people after promising them “change”.
The president of ASUU, Nasir Isa, made the union’s position known while presenting a “State of the Nation Address” to journalists in Abuja.
|
|
The union called on Nigerians to rise up and reclaim the country from an inept ruling class and their foreign collaborators, saying the tools to confront the system are both structural and instrumental.
The union also advocated the establishment of a genuine party which is organised to meet the challenges of building a nation where groups and individuals live in freedom and happiness.
|
|
|
|---|
“Structurally, there is need to adopt a development model that will make majority of Nigerians the key subjects and objects of the development process in the face of aggressive intervention from a genuine worker’s party, organised to meet the challenges of forging Nigeria where nations and individuals live in freedom and happiness,” ASUU stated.
The union said the nation was facing a serious socioeconomic crisis and listed the symptoms of the crisis as rising poverty level, increasing unemployment and heightened expectation leading to frustration due to failure to realise improved living standard.
Other symptoms the union listed are higher food prices, poor healthcare delivery, insecurity of life and property and suffering.
Despite drastic fall in the price of crude oil, ASUU said Nigeria has enough revenue sources to lift its people out of poverty and develop the nation’s economy.
The union said the government could mobilise revenue from unpaid and underpaid taxes by multinational oil companies, wealthy Nigerians who patronize tax heavens, wealthy public officers and property owners who pay very little tax in Nigeria.
ASUU said the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration can also recover stolen public assets and unremitted revenues collected by state agencies in all three tiers of government and mop up illegal security votes appropriated by state governors.
It listed other sources as recovery of public assets sold to individuals and firms at give-away prices and unremitted revenue accruing from recovered stolen funds.
“In the light of tax evasion and tax avoidance by wealthy Nigerians and foreigners, it is unjust to continue to overburden the Nigerian working people including the unemployed through indirect taxation,” the union stated.
“This heavy burden takes the following forms: increase in electricity tariff; illegal and disguised increases in the petroleum products as well as increase in road and air transport fare.”
The union said Nigerians are particularly disappointed because the government that promised change has failed to deliver on its promises, adding that the present administration was yet to come to terms with the tenets of democracy.
It argued strongly that the government did not consider the primacy of the people in its national development goals as well as in budgeting and anti-corruption campaign.
The union criticised the reliance of successive governments in the country on the Bretton Woods Institutions and ideologies and advocated the adoption of socialist ideology in governance.
It argued that both the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, that won and lost the 2015 general election at the center embrace the neo-liberal ideology of the International Monetary Fund, IMF and the World Bank.
It said the large number of cross-over that resulted in the victory of the APC had nothing to do with a viable economic or political ideology and suggested the establishment of an alternative political framework to mainstream the articulation of explicit ideologies.
On the recurrent fuel crisis, ASUU said the situation has led to increase in the cost of food, transportation and power while also widening the distance between the government and the people.
“Government is slow in implementing the policies it pronounced in 2015, namely, that it would get refineries working, end crude and refined products swap, reintroduction of direct sale, direct purchase in the oil sector and making specific unambiguous pronouncement of the oil subsidy,” the union stated.
“The government should implement its proclaimed policies in the oil and gas sector. On no account should this result in any increase in the price of petroleum products because Nigerians have suffered enough.
“And if increment of the prices of petroleum products is forced upon the people, our union will join Nigerian workers to resist until the increase is reversed.
On the power sector, the union condemned in strong terms the illegal sale of the country’s power assets by the ruling class, noting that it will continue to work with progressive forces to protest the sharp practices going on in the sector.
Discover more from Premium Times Nigeria
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
