The Academic Staff Union of Universities,ASUU,has told the federal government that it cannot fight ongoing worsening insecurity in the country so long as it continues to “keep students at home.
This was as the union asked Nigerians to hold the government accountable for its ongoing strike, explaining that it did everything possible to avert the situation to to avail due to government’s nonchalance to issues that led to its strike.
ASUU President,Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke,who said these,Monday,in his goodwill message at the Maiden Nigerian Medical Association,NMA’s Annual Lecture,in. Abuja, alleged that ministers of education, labour and finance and the Chief of Staff to the President flouted President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to engage it in a meeting to find immediate solutions to the crisis.
Speaking through his representative and Vice President of ASUU,Prof. Chris Piwuna, Osodeke,who spoke at the event with a theme:”Brain Drain and Medical Tourism: The Twin Evil in Nigeria’s Health System”, explained that during visit by the Sultan of Sokoto,five weeks ago,the president directed the ministers and his Chief of Staff to immediately hold a meeting with ASUU for a quick resolution of the ongoing strike, alleging that they instead,ignored him.
He said only the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission,NUC,had been attending its meeting since the strike started.
Noting that the theme of the NMA’s annual lecturre was on brain drain, he said:” That is what ASUU has been taking about for years.”
“We hope that the evil in the medical system which has transformed to all the sectors of the Nigerian state would be curtailed and brain drain will be a thing of the past but as it is now,the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is the one keeping Nigerian students at home and Nigerians must rise to challenge this government for what they are doing. They cannot fight insecurity if they are keeping the student at home,”he said.
” We have been taking about the state of the universities and how academic staff fare. We have been on strike for about eight weeks to nine weeks now. The president of this country, President Muhammadu Buhari had directed about five weeks ago, when the Sultan of Sokoto visited him,that the Minister of Education,Minister of Finance,the Minister of Labour and the Chief of Staff to the President should meet with us in his office,that has not been done. That meeting has not taken place,five weeks ago that the president gave the directive,”he lamented
Açcording to him,”Outside the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission,NUC,who has attended virtually all our meetings,not a single one of them has been there,even the Minister of Labour himself.”
“We have met with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, about three times. We have met with the President of the Senate three times,we have met with the Sultan of Sokoto,we have met with Dr. Kayode Fayemi,the governor of Ekiti State,what else do you want us to do? What else do Nigerians want us to do?” He asked.
Turning to the guests in the hall,he said,”There are two vice chancellors seated in this hall,they know exactly what we mean when we say universities are not funded.”
He said payment of tuition by students as one of the ways of addressing poor funding was not the way to go given that parents, especially at the local level were finding it difficult to feed.
“Nigerians,you have been talking about people paying school fees,that tuition fees should be introduced, they said that is one way we can fund our universities. If we can all go to our local governments and just ask the people in our local governments, whether they can pay tuition, and they accept,we will go with it
“There is nothing that we haven’t done to avoid strike. When we talk of tuition in our universities, it is as if parents don’t pay. You pay for your children off-campus, you pay for their feeding,you pay for their field trips,you pay for everything, and they say we should introduce tuition, perhaps if majority of Nigerians in our local governments can feed, then we will say that we are ready for it,other than that,we are not,”he added.
