The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has accused the Federal Government of politicizing university education, alleging that the six new universities recently approved by the government were meant to shore up 2023 election campaigns.
Recall that the Federal Government recently announced the establishment of six new private universities across the country, bringing the total universities in Nigeria to about 176 universities both public and private.
But ASUU at a press conference at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, on the contentious Nigerian Technology Development Agency, NITDA, which the body has consistently opposed, the Owerri zone of ASUU wondered why the government should be establishing new universities at this critical time when it is unable to properly fund the existing ones.
Coordinator of ASUU in the zone, Comrade Uzo Onyebinama said the association would ask the National Universities Commission, NUC, to review its activities to empower it to control the rate at which state governments were also establishing universities even when they couldn’t fund existing ones.
Onyebinama said, “We had asked the federal government in our various conferences the needless of creating universities when it can’t fund existing ones.
“But you know, as politicians, given that we are approaching the 2023 election, they want to have something for their campaign.
He said, “When they visit those communities, they tell them they’ve given them universities. It’s not about opening universities, but about funding and sustenance. Why establish new universities when the ones on the ground are mere shadows of themselves.”
“If they fund the existing ones and expand their facilities, those ones can absorb whatever number of students these new ones will take. Truth is that the same new universities will tomorrow join other old ones to lament about funding. And another government will come up to establish theirs,” he said.
“Both the Federal and state governments are guilty of this and that is why we are asking the federal government to stop the proliferation of universities”.
Onyebinama also spoke on what he described as the pitiable conditions of service of academic staff in public universities in Nigeria, lamenting that they have been on the same salary structure since 2009.”
According to him, “A professor in a public university in Nigeria at the bar of his salary scale takes home N416, 000 per month. This is in spite of hyperinflation and hyper devaluation of the Naira.”
“At an average conservative exchange rate of 500 nairas to the dollar, the take-home pay of a professor in a Nigerian university amounts to 832 dollars.
“Another major outstanding issue is the reluctance of the federal government of Nigeria to deploy the University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) as a payment platform for the salaries and other entitlements of academic staff in public Universities.”
Other chairmen of ASUU in universities in the Owerri zone at the event were Okey Aniebo of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, COOU, Chinedu Ihejirika of Federal University of Technology, FUTO, Owerri, Odinakachukwu Ejiogu of Imo State University, IMSU, Owerri, Chike Ugwuene of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, MOUAU, and Steve Ufoaroh of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, NAU, Awka.
