TheCable

Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, the minister of state for education, says the bulk of money budgeted for education is spent on 10,500 professors in the country.

In an interview with The Punch, the minister said the strike embarked on by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is making Nigerian students leave for higher institutions abroad and for private universities.

The union embarked on strike in March to demand owed allowances.

“Actually, there have been a lot of people asking me as minister what I think is the real intention of ASUU. If you look at it critically, what ASUU is achieving by this (strike) is driving students to private universities and out of the country,” he said.

“There is nothing that is now an issue. Even if you say universities are not well run, it is ASUU members that run them. If you say there is no enough money given to education, there is no enough money given to anything in Nigeria.

“The bulk of the money that is in education is paid to these professors. There are 71,000 lecturers in Nigeria alone, with 10,500 of them as professors. There are some countries that don’t have up to 2000 (professors).

“So, it is not enough to simply say we should bring more money; from where? The 2020 budget, underperformed as low as 62 per cent. We didn’t even collect revenue, there were no companies functioning to pay taxes.”