Save public varsities from collapse, ASUU begs Tinubu

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, on Friday, said that only the intervention of President Bola Tinubu could save public universities from being thrown into another prolonged strike action.

The union called on eminent Nigerians to prevail on President Tinubu to stop acting so indifferently to the parlous state of the public universities as well as the genuine demands of the lecturers regarding funding of the university among other welfare concerns.

The union said that the refusal of the government to be alive to its financial responsibility and commitment to the public universities is dangerous and would only continue to encourage the collapse of the public universities.

The ASUU Chairman, Lagos Zone, Prof Adelaja Odukoya, made this call on Friday at a press briefing held at the ASUU Secretariat of the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye.

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Those in attendance at the briefing included leaders of ASUU from Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Lagos State University, University of Lagos, and Olabisi Onabanjo University among others.

Prof Odukoya said it was sad and painful that the present administration has failed to embrace proper funding of the universities but will rather continue to uphold the erstwhile tokenism that drove the universities into its present parlous condition.

He said that the issues that may force the universities to embark on yet another prolonged strike very soon are the deliberate refusal of the Federal Government to sign and implement the re-negotiated FGN/ASUU Agreement, non-payment of Earned Academic Allowances, and arrears of promotion.

Others are non-release of third-party deductions criminal failure to implement the recommendations of the White Papers on Visitation Panels to Federal Universities and refusal to address the unending retrogressive proliferation of Universities.

ASUU condemned in strong terms the creation of more universities by the federal and state government when it has failed to fund the existing ones saying that this is only encouraging duplication of duties with its attendant increase in overhead cost and expenditures.

Rather than establishing new universities, the union said that the government should have expanded the scope of many of the existing universities that have the capacity to increase their student population and some academic programmes being run in such institutions.

The union said “Regrettably Visitors of Federal and State universities have turned the establishment of universities into constituency projects.

“This development is obviously harmful, retrogressive, and unacceptable. Our Union hereby calls for the review and strengthening of the NUC laws to arrest the negative trends”.