The Federal Government is proposing a slash of N50.76 billion from the N111.78 billion budgeted for UBEC to bring it down to N61.02 billion and a cut of N26.51 billion from the N44.49 billion allocated to Basic Healthcare to bring it down to N17.98 billion.
Following the proposal, concerned bodies have warned against the cut, one of which is the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, which agrees totally with my view.
ASUU’s warning to the government against the proposed cut by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has shown that the union is not just fighting its cause for the benefit of its members only, but also for the benefit of the entire country.
ASUU’s stand on the proposed cut by the government is predicated on the officials’ total lack of understanding of the precarious state of things in Nigeria’s health and education sectors. The reality is that such cuts would definitely impede on the sectors which should rather be allocated more money on.
It is so obvious that the government has not learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic on the precarious state of facilities in Nigeria’s health and education sectors. This has brought many things to mind, top on the list being that the Buhari-led administration does not regard the importance of these two sectors in the country, otherwise, they could not have thought of slashing their budgets.
Cutting down the budget of the Health and Education sectors in the proposed 2020 revised budget should not be done. It would mean a lot of problems in the nearest future.
I totally agree with the ASUU chairman, Prof. Akinwole on the fact that a serious and progressive government will not allocate funds for any rehabilitation of government buildings or purchase of buses while critical sectors like Health and Education which as evident in the COVID-19 pandemic, brought all political, economic, religious, among other activities to a halt.
Concomitantly, stopping the payment of salaries to the lecturers for refusing the quest of the government to break the laws thereby making over 30,000 lecturers and their over 50,000 dependents vulnerable at this time by the Federal government is very wrong.
While the stoppage of salaries to lecturers is a sign of lawlessness and tyranny of the Buhari adminstration, members of ASUU and affected citizens should not be cowed in their resolve to fight for the revitalisation of public-funded education and the sanctity of the laws of the land.
Also journalists should not be disregarded in the sharing of the palliatives being distributed as over 50 per cent of journalists are not being paid salaries while many are being owed over a year.
Journalists should also be included if truly, the administration is not against journalism practice in the country.
Also, the government should not defraud the nation by muddling up budgeted social intervention funds with donated funds meant for palliatives for the vulnerable ones to cope with COVID-19 which has negatively affected a lot of livelihoods.
Muddling up palliative being distributed is a total lack of transparency in ending fraud and profiteering from the deprivation of the downtrodden.
• Ernest Lawrence, a University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) Mass Communications graduate wrote via email