Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, University of Ibadan chapter, Dr. Deji Omole yesterday said that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari lacked integrity, describing as worrisome that a government would sign a Memorandum of Action in 2017 and failed to implement it even after a year.
According to him, the ongoing strike was painfully embarked on by ASUU when all form of lobby and consultations had collapsed.
He, however, declared that proliferation of universities in the country without corresponding funding was responsible for low global ranking of the nation’s universities.
Specifically, Omole said that lecturers duly deserved their Earned Academic Allowances since federal government had refused to employ new lecturers, forcing one lecturer to be teaching about 300 students as against the benchmark set up by NUC.
Omole said that earned allowances was a right for those teaching excess number of students and not a privilege, adding that “we need to bring our universities to a standard we can say we really have them. We are no longer interested in half baked universities”, he stressed.
The ASUU boss said the union would continue to agitate for the interest of the downtrodden who, he said the Dr. Wale Babalakin- led federal government re-negotiation team tried short-change by trying to introduce tuition in public varsities.
He said: “When you are dealing with people that are irresponsive and irresponsible, you must continue to agitate. For as long as it would take this government to fail to listen to the voice of reasoning, ASUU will continue to stand with the people. “Before 2009, we had agreement in 1992 under Babangida and another one under Olusegun Obasanjo.
“It took us three years to sign the agreements and so nobody arm-twisted the government. The fact is that all governments have been unfaithful to Nigerians and the future of her youths. If they don’t know how to solve the problems, then they are not fit to be in government. How can a government claim to have integrity but signed MoA in 2017 and failed to implement it? It speaks volume about the integrity of those in government.”
