 I have a fantastic gentleman joining the conversation. This morning, Dr. Peter Ogudor is an education researcher and leader of the Nigerian teachers community, over 400,000 members in Lagos right here. Good morning, Dr. Peter Ogudor. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, it's my pleasure. Yeah, good morning. It's my pleasure to join you. All right, a bit of a background to what's going on. The president has given the minister an ultimatum to ensure that the strike, which is about six months, all ends soon. We don't know how soon. President Mohammed Buhari, with us given an order, he met with the minister of education at Damwa Damu and relevant members of his cabinet, where he received briefings on the current face of between the government and university unions, including ASU, none at the end of the meeting. He directed the education minister to purify a solution to the continued industrial action by lecturers and report back to him in two weeks. I mean, so it's going to take a lot of time. It doesn't mean that it would end in two weeks. The president had also instructed the minister of labor and employment, Chris Ingegir, as well as the secretary of the Federation, Boss Mustafa, who were also present to be in attendance in all the meetings to speedily resolve the crisis. While ASU president, Emmanuel Chaudhry case, he's the president's action as a welcome development, he's of the opinion that given such a directive is not new. He believes that government is still on serious with a lingering strike by university lecturers, stressing that it does not require such a long time or time for him to resolve the issues. He further says that it will take just two days and not two weeks to call off the strike, which is really, really interesting. Two weeks is too long, he said. The issue of negotiation has been completed by both sides and just come back to us and say, we have agreed we will not take two days. That will not take two days, okay? So it means that you guys have agreed it should not take two days to come back and say we have done it. What exactly is the issue? We have this morning joining us, Dr. Peter Ogun Dorey. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's my pleasure, good morning. Now, listening to this background, the background to this, what do you make of it? The union is saying that two weeks is too long for all of this. We have had several talks, we have come to an agreement and we don't even need two weeks for it. It might just take two days for the strike to be called off. Who is to be blamed in all of this? Yeah, I think the attitude of politicians should be what we have to address. Because the trend they actually have brought, they are not wearing the shoes so they don't know how, you know, ban these different things. And that means that they don't see why they should be in the high for it all to matter. So to answer your question directly, I think that the politicians are the ones who are giving us the headache. They don't seem to understand how in this principle education is, especially how education is to the factor of development for the country. So I'm very unhappy that this is a, you know, a crop of people who are at the home of ourselves in managing the political aspects of our country. We can't complain about the university lecturers. We are not paying them well and the little we are going to pay them we don't deliver in good time. We, these are people who are suffering for about five months now they have not made any salary. And we don't seem to be in a hurry to end it. So the answer is yes. The politicians don't know what they're doing. But let's also look at, you know, the consent of ASU now and also look at the state of the government. It's a two-way thing. The government on the other hand seem to be saying that there's no money, especially with all this going on. We want to look at remittances to the Federation account. How consistent have we been? What's even going on? Do we really have money? Because at the end of all of this is the fact that, you know, this lecture is asking for money. Everything that is required requires money. But you also look at the consent of this lecturers, the union now, and it's also valid. They're asking for revitalization of universities, allowances and what have you, just to have a beautiful atmosphere where education and learning can be very fantastic. How do you balance this two now? Do you think that ASU has been unnecessarily dramatic and being insensitive to the plight of government? Do you also think that government is also not, you know, living to high expectation? No, you can't. ASU members are employees of government and so employees in any client never have the responsibility to fund a system under their work. Because they need to become the system. You said that this is not your employment. So, if you want the system it's their responsibility to think of how to fund it. And I think that even if we succeed in getting university like ASU back to their classrooms, we still are going to go back to this square one very, very soon. Because the fundamental issue you have raised there with its funding has not been undressed in all of these negotiations. We are too much in a hurry to try to get back to classrooms and get our children, you know, to send them away from our home so that they don't have to spoil our students and teach them very, you know, for better and the better. But I tell you that indeed the plight of government doesn't seem to have the kind of money it says to run universities at the cutting-edge level. And we are also wronged to have assumed that the parents of the children who study in this place is now willing to contribute to the funding of universities in our country. It's also fine that we don't seem to know how to go about getting parents to contribute significantly to the funding of the system. It's the wrong model for us to keep thinking that in an attempt to press students, impress students and their parents that government will continue to pay, bring back the money that is required to fund their enterprises and pay university-led salaries. It's not a sustainable model. Parents must be brought to the table. In all of these conversations, I have one hand that parents of these children and the children themselves were part of the conversation. And that is where I am. So this agreement is made on arrival. It's taught them about to get them back to class. I mean, they pay what they want in them now. And you don't have a sustainable model for funding them about the system. You are about to try to let them do them now. Now, but we understand that 2% of the revenue that's being generated is used to fund the educational system. Is this a case of no funds? Is it that we don't have funds to fund universities? Or is it a case of no wheel? What exactly are we dealing with here now? Because as a strike has been ongoing for a long time, I, as a person seated here, have experienced the strike. So you can imagine. It feels like there's something that would never go off. And here we are six months. You have the children sitting at home, doing nothing. What exactly are we dealing with? That government does not have the resources, the funds, to fund the universities, or there's no wheel to fund the universities? No, we see in our country, we like to assume that we are rich. Nigeria is a poor country. Our entire national budget, really, is much smaller compared to, for example, the money at Tesla, at one organization in the U.S., is making it in the year now. So you are a very poor country. So you have to recognize that and put it on the front burner for parents to know. The idea that government holds answers was related to fund education 100%. It's the wrong idea. If those societies, all of us, our children are children, they all want to go and relax and enjoy. For example, United States, United Kingdom, especially those two countries, look at them. They have the best education in the world at the moment. They're putting at the higher education level. And when it comes to the lower levels, we start talking about countries like Finland, Sweden and Iceland. Why in those countries? The average young person who is giving 100 levels in the United States, 8,000 pounds in a year. Translate that to Naira. You see how much it costs to have education in the U.S. You can't know how much it costs to have that education. Go to the U.S. It's a similar circumstance. They have no child in the U.S. in the U.S. This training, they don't need to be able to get higher education. Several years after graduating. So why are we suggesting that people have to get higher education for free? Yes, we can say parents are poor, but many of these parents are also the ones who have their children in private universities in our country. So if we negotiate and bring parents into the equation, you will discover that we'll be able to find a model that is possible. The current model is not possible at all. No, but if you say that we don't have enough money, we will come back to the argument of how much a senator is earning in Nigeria when there's been juxtaposed with other countries. And we look at the lifestyle of our politicians and those who are in the ruling class, the fact that they live very flamboyant. You want to go as low as looking at a convoy of a local government chairman. He probably would have like several fleets of cars. And these cars would require you to fuel them. You have to pay the personnel. You have to pay the people who would mend these cars because these cars will not drive themselves. Let's not even begin to go to the statistics of figures. So how do we constantly say that we don't have money when we were spending so much? We look at how much we spend to maintain the cost of running governance in Nigeria. You mentioned the budget. How much of the budget has been paid to capital expenditure? We seem to pay more attention to recurrent expenditure than capital over time. So why do we say that we don't have money? Because the cost of running government is on the high. We spend so much money running the government. We see the allowances of these senators and this government knows and what have you take home. But we don't have money to fund the universities. So are you saying that we should privatize our universities now? We should hand it over to the private sector. Well, unfortunately, we have been disconnected. Dr. Peter Gundoro, we hope that he joins us. But these are some of the issues that we're talking about. Is it really a problem of no funds to fund our institution? I am saying, really, how much does the professor end in Nigeria? About $500,000, if not below $500,000. That's what a professor, do you know what it takes to become a professor? He requires a lot of studying, learning, all sorts. And these specimens seem not to have a life. And then on the other hand, you have, because that's what it is. That's why you see every other time everybody wants to become a governor. Maybe we need to reduce the pecs of becoming governor's chairman of local government and becoming a president. All of the allowances and a senator. And then he might not become very attractive for people to venture into. Why don't we have a lot of persons saying they want to become lecturers and professors? Because it's not lucrative. I pass through a school system. And I can tell you what it is. It's a federal institution. People literally, in 21st century, sit on the floor. The school environment is nothing to write them about. I have been in a classroom or a lecture room, or a lab where I'm being told to imagine that there's a computer in front of me. It is totally embarrassing. Not to say that we have perfect countries in the world, but really, how do you explain that? They say wherever your money is, is where your hat will go. Do we put our hat, do we put our money where our hat is? Because we see where our money goes. Does it go to the educational sector? Let's look at the learning environment. How many persons leave Ghana and leave all the African countries to come to school in Nigeria? No. And now we hear the president giving an ultimatum and it is the president leading from behind or in front. Should the president not be, you know, can the president not even boycott the minister or even have the minister, you know, the labor man, Chris and Gigi all together and ask this person to come. Let's talk about this issue. How do we solve it? And how do you get into a table with two people? And at the end of the day, you refuse, you know, to implement what you have agreed on. An agreement that says an agreement. So what exactly are we dealing with now? Is it really true that we don't have resources or we don't even care about the people? And because we have what it takes to send our children outside of the country, and nobody says it's a big deal, but hey, do we know how we enrich this country constantly when we send our children outside? Why can we fix our own educational system and have people coming to spend the money in our country? But that's the size of our conversation. Thank you so much for being part of the breakfast. I am Masiya Boko. If you missed out on any part of it, it will be all right to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And do subscribe to our YouTube channel. It's at Plus TV Africa and Plus TV Africa Lifestyle. I'll see you tomorrow.