The
Academic Staff Union of Universities has blamed former military
dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida for the current problems bedeviling the
nation’s education sector. The union believed that the former
military President presided over what it described as the dictatorship
of the International Monetary Fund and Structural Adjustment Programme,
whose policies were used to “kill public schools” in the late 1980s.
The union, which said its four-month-old
strike would continue until government shows genuine commitment to the
2009 agreement, also called on government to reject “the reintroduction
of SAP through the back door.”
The chairman of ASUU, Obafemi Awolowo
University, Prof. Ade Akinola, in a statement on Monday, said the
government should show patriotism and ensure that the university
teachers returned to work.
He said, “Patriotism demands that the
government should reject the dictate of the international financial
conglomerate (IMF) and the reintroduction of SAP through the back door,
under the superintendence of the Minister of Finance, Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala.
“Otherwise, why the rush to imbibe this
strange doctrine that basic education is what Nigeria needs? The
implication of this is that government should minimally spend or
disengage from spending on tertiary education. Yet, we are in the age
where knowledge is the difference. Wilful collapse of public
institutions and subordination of national interest to private one must
stop.
“ASUU insists that the strike continues
until government shows genuine commitment to the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement
as reinforced by the MoU of January 24, 2012 as it will not be part of
this deliberate decimation of public university system.”
The OAU-ASUU branch chairman said government’s patriotism became necessary “to stop this cycle of institutional collapse.”
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