After much ado, the federal Government of Nigeria, has decided to take the line of action of paying the 200 billion requested by the striking memebers of the Academc Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU). In doing this, they also canceled the previous ultimatum given to ASUU members to call off the strike or face the risk of loosing their jobs.
The Federal Government made the payment yesterday and also provided proof of the disbursement of the 200 billion into the educational trust account which was one of the criteria earlier given by lecturers for resumption.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr Doyin Okupe, yesterday in a press conference, showed a letter with reference number GVD/DGO/GEN/MP/05/151 which was addressed to the Auditor-General of the Federation and titled: “Confirmation of the Execution of your Mandate for the Credit of Account No…Revitalization of Universities Infrastructure Account.”
It read thus:
“I write to confirm the execution of the following mandates by the Central Bank of Nigeria for funding of the above mentioned account as follows:Mandate FD/LP2013/40/1/30/DF – 129,300,000,000.00Mandate FD/F124/Vol XII/120/DF – 20,700,000,000.00Mandate FD/LP2013/40/1/DF – 50,000,000,000.0“I wish to further confirm that the available balance in the aforementioned account is N200,000,000,000.00 (Two Hundred Billion Naira Only).“Please, accept the assurances of my best regards.”