The Zonal coordinator of
the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Ibadan Zone, Dr Ade Adejumo, on
Tuesday alleged that the Federal Government was making attempt to make students
of federal universities pay a minimum of N350,000 for tuition fee.
Adejumo said this while
addressing members of the Correspondents Chapel, Ibadan. He said it was vital
for ASUU to let the public know that there could be labour crisis in the
federal universities in the country, adding that the proposal led to the
breakdown of the 2017/2018 renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement.
He said: “The union is again
constrained to draw the attention of Nigerian public to an impending labour
crisis in the Nigerian universities as a result of the insensitivity of the
Nigerian government to issues critical to the survival of the educational
system in Nigeria.
“It is no longer news that
the renegotiation, which the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu,
promised was going to last for only six weeks, has broken down. “The reason for
this very unfortunate development will appal most Nigerians. First, the leader
of the government team, who was supposed to be an arbiter between the parties,
assumed an arrogant attitude that sought to foist a predetermined mindset of
government on the union.
“The union was confronted
with a situation where the government is bent on imposing tuition fees,
beginning from N350,000, on students in the Nigerian public-owned tertiary
institutions. On the question as to how the students will raise such money, the
answer that government has is that it will establish an Education Bank, where students
will access credit facilities and payback on completion of their studies.”
Members of the Academic
Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Friday, August 17 took to the streets of
Osogbo to protest the alleged neglect of Ladoke Akintola University of
Technology (LAUTECH), Ogbomosho.
The protesters, in their
hundreds, carried placards with various inscriptions such as “Oyo/Osun, Don’t
Play Politics with the Lives of Our Students,” and “ Do Not Kill the Best State
University in Nigeria’’ among others.
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