ASUU Warns FG, States Over High-handedness On Universities

by Topsy Oba

Nigeria’s Academic Staff Union of University, ASUU, Monday in Kano, raised alarm over what it described as high-handedness of Federal and state governments in the handling of issues concerning the welfare and security of students and lecturers in the country.

ASUU leadership expressed concern over the inability of university authorities across the country to ensure conducive environment for learning and as well qualitative education to Nigerian undergraduates and their tutors, coupled with flagrant disobedience to Court Orders.
ASUU National President, Dr. Nasir F. Isa told journalists at ASUU secretariat, Bayero University Kano, BUK, that if the disposition towards arbitrary and illegal conduct among management of some Universities are not checked, more campus autocrats and lawless university managers are likely to emerge.

Nasir called on President Goodluck Jonathan and state governors to urgently intervene in the crisis-ridden universities so as to protect their integrity and save the already battered education sector.

Students on a protest

Cases cited by the academic pressure group include the killing of students at Nasarawa State University, Keffi, NSUK; leadership crisis at Rivers State University of Science and Technology, RSUST; disregard for court orders at University of Ilorin; release of White Paper on President Goodluck Jonathan’s special visitation to University of Abuja; and the need for reconstitution of Governing Councils for Federal Universities in the country.