The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Sunday declared that education is not the priority of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government.
ASUU in a statement signed by its University of Ibadan Chapter Chairman, Professor Deji Omole accused the President Buhari led All Progressive Congress (APC) government of “a deliberate plan to starve public education with funds in order to deny Nigerian youths the right to know and challenge misrule.”
Specifically, ASUU tagged the President Muhammadu Buhari led government policy on Education “as wicked and criminal against the needs of Nigerian youths.
“Education is not the priority of this government. Due to paucity of funds many universities including University of Ibadan, the nation’s premier university can not admit many qualified candidates into the universities. This is dangerous to the society as the rejected qualified and brilliant candidates may eventually take to crimes because the country has rejected them.The policy is not only wicked but criminal”, he said.
Lamenting that the sacrifices of understaffed and underpaid Nigerian academica will be futile if President Buhari does not increase education funding, the University of Ibadan ASUU Chairman s stressed that the University of Ibadan is presently groaning due to paucity of funds, insufficient staff, decayed infrastructure and bad laboratories.
“APC Government failure to fund education is a design to kill public universities. University of ibadan is groaning terribly due to paucity of funds. Retired academics can not be replaced because government deliberately refused to make budgetary provision for growth and development. This crisis has led to the staff on ground being overworked leading to early deaths of many of our colleagues.”
Emphasizing that due to paucity of funds over 500,000 Nigerian children who desire public University education are rejected annually due to poor funding, decayed infrastructure and reduced manpower, Professor Omole said unless urgent steps are taken to cater for the children needs of the Nigerian children, many of them will fight back with crime.
