The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to take immediate action to address the crisis facing public universities in Nigeria.
The union warns that the universities are on the brink of collapse due to chronic underfunding, inadequate infrastructure, and neglect.
ASUU is seeking Tinubu’s intervention to provide adequate funding, improve working conditions, and ensure the proper functioning of the 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.
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.
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.”
