The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Sunday described President Muhammadu Buhari’s policy on education as “wicked and criminal against the needs of Nigerian youth”.
The union accused the All Progressives 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”.
Chairman, University of Ibadan chapter of ASUU, Professor Deji Omole, in a statement made available lamented that “the sacrifices of understaffed and underpaid Nigerian academic will be futile if President Buhari does not increase education funding”.
Omole insisted that the University of Ibadan is presently groaning due to paucity of funds, insufficient staff, decayed infrastructure and bad laboratories.
According to the ASUU chief, “education is not the priority of the Buhari government”.
He lamented that 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 needs of the Nigerian children, many of them will fight back with crime. He said:
“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. Education is not the priority 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.”
