From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU) chapter, has frowned at the rate at which the federal and state governments are establishing public universities.
ASUU said it is equally alarmed at the rate licenses were being granted to individuals and organizations to establish private universities without adequate preparation for their funding to ensure high academic standards.
These were disclosed by the union during a press conference held at the MOUAU ASUU secretariat at the university campus.
Reading from a release he co-signed by C.C. Osodeke, secretary, and titled, “The lingering and unresolved issues between Federal Government and ASUU: Who is deceiving who?”, the chairman of ASUU in MOUAU, M.C. Ugwuene said the current situation whereby Nigeria has over 170 universities out of which 79 are owed by individuals and private organizations; while Federal and State Governments have 43 and 48 respectively, was alarming.
“The establishment of private universities by politicians and their cohorts is a ploy to weaken the strength, academic standard and diversion of adequate attention that ought to have been paid for the development of public universities in Nigeria where the children of the poor and the average attend.”
The union accused the Federal Government of refusing to implement the report of renegotiated agreements it reached with ASUU 15 years ago.
Some of the agreements ASUU said the Federal Government refused to implement is the adequate funding of universities, regretting that out of the N1.3trn, a committee set for this recommended should be given to universities for infrastructural development, only N250bn was released so far from 2013 till date.
On the welfare of its members, ASUU said, “Currently, a Professor at the bar is earning about N500,000 per month, which is a far cry from the West African and African average for Professors.
“This is heartbreaking when compared to the humongous salaries and allowances of about N29m per month for Senators and about N23m for the House of Representatives. These whopping salaries and allowances of these unproductive politicians that are responsible for the current comatose state of the nation is, to say the least, unacceptable.”
The union highlighted other areas it said the Federal Government has refused to honour its agreement with ASUU to include withheld salaries of lectures arising from the 2022 ASUU strike, non-payment of Earned Academic Allowance (EAA), violation of university autonomy, non-scraping of IPPIS, illegal dissolution of Governing Councils and imposition of Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standard (CCMS).
The ASUU members who later matched round the university campus as they sang solidarity songs, called on President Bola Tinubu to urgently address the nagging issues.
