The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has chastised Nigeria’s federal government, accusing it of avoiding its obligations.
Prof Ayo Akinwole, the ASUU chairman at the University of Ibadan, made the accusation at a news conference on Wednesday, blaming the ongoing ASUU strike on the government’s ineffectiveness and arguing that the union deserves what they are requesting.
Rather than focusing on essential issues of national growth, he claims, individuals in authority are more concerned with having their egos stroked by sycophants.
Prof Akinwole stated the administration has left the country on autopilot and abandoned its obligations at a press conference conducted at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Oyo State.
The fact that ASUU has been making the same demands from the federal government for years and the country’s leaders have been unable to find a solution is irritating, he said.
He went on to declare that the government’s proposal and formation of a new committee to renegotiate the agreement between them is satanic and unacceptable, and that the administration is full of deception.
As a result, the ASUU official urged the government to heed the demands of the striking teachers in order to prevent the country’s educational sector from collapsing further.
His words: “If Nigeria Labour Congress has been asked to call ASUU to order, who else apart from the Nigerian people do the union ask to call the government officials to order? They have made a mess of the long-standing tradition of the committee system.
“They have turned committee formation to finding jobs for political jobbers, who will submit their reports that will not be implemented by the government that appointed them. It has become so sad that the country is put on auto-run without respect for those they even employ to work for them.
“It is never too late for the government to make it an urgent point of duty to solve the problem of university education and not think that it will just pass away. It will be getting worse if nothing is done. Problems do not get solved by propaganda, falsehood, and deceit.”
The country’s political leaders, according to Akinwole, have displayed a “lack of ideological clarity for running a growing nation state and avoiding appalling dysfunctionality.”
“Nigerians currently live and lament unendingly about the same issues over and over again with negative progress on critical issues of economy, governance, healthcare, education, high unemployment, poor infrastructures, obdurate anti-corruption fight and insecurity.”
He, therefore, called on the government to “face the reality of decay and declare a state of emergency on poor condition of public universities in Nigeria and give it what is due to it.
“Government should stop the isolationism and embrace holistic solution to public university education. Let us stop portraying students’ interest as different from those of their teachers and parents. All the interests converge at improving the quality of life and educational infrastructure.
“The piecemeal solution of part payment of earned academic allowance, grossly inadequate disbursement of revitalization funds, erosion of university autonomy, and proliferation of universities should come to an end. You cannot kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
“Nigerian academics deserve a commensurate living wage consequent on the economic context of Nigeria today in order to maintain the dignity of their work.”
