The Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has called on the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, to call off its ongoing strike.
Speaking with DAILY POST on Saturday night, Chuks Ibegbu, the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the organisation, said ASUU should call off the strike before the commencement of the forthcoming general elections.
Ibegbu urged the body to organise students and vote out “irresponsible government”. He also admonished the body to work out a road map to make, “our universities functional and productive to the society.”
According to Ibegbu: “Two wrongs can’t make a right, they must not always insist that things are done their way. Look at most Nigerians now move there for their university, they are moving to other countries like Uganda, even Rwanda, can you imagine? Because of stability in their education system.
“But here, it’s either one strike today or tomorrow and they fail to understand that there are other sub-sectors of the economy facing one challenge or the other and not only ASUU, so when we want to approach them to find a solution to Nigeria’s problems it should be holistic. It shouldn’t be ASUU and NASU just asking for salary increment and allowances, how many of them carry out research, go to some of these colleges of technologies abroad, they carry out researches. But here if you give some of these professors money for research, they will eat it, you will see them gallivanting all over the world, buying cars and other things.
“However, some of their demands are genuine but some are frivolous because they are not considering other Nigerians that are suffering, they are only thinking of themselves.
“I know that most of the people leading us are criminals and have no vision but if you go into the universities and bring some of these lecturers into government, they become looters, they join our politicians to loot. Most of them in government today are now overnight looters.
“Our problem is holistic and in as much as our university system is underfunded, ASUU and NASU should be part of the solution to our problem not part of the problem. They should not just be making sanctimonious statement, Nigeria has the highest number of professors in Africa yet our people are suffering, they have not produced solutions to our problems.
“ASUU need to sit down and work out a road map to make our universities functional and productive to the society.
“They should produce an education road map and ensure that the right people are in government so that those ideals they are looking for would be implemented, they should not be part of the problem. They should organise themselves and vote out hoodlums in government so that we will have responsible people in government and when responsible people are in government, their agitations will be looked into.
“Election is less than a month time, they should call off the strike, organise themselves and vote out irresponsible government at all levels and once they do that, we will have a responsible government.
“ASUU should call off the strike and ensure that they and their students vote people that will bring in educational efficiency politically, they should call off the strike.”
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