The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has reacted to President Muhammadu Buhari’s comments that “enough is enough” of the ongoing strike by the university lecturers.
Buhari had, Monday, called on the striking lecturers to call off the strike, saying that he hoped the union “will sympathise with the people on the prolonged strike.”
In a statement by the Lagos zone of the union and signed by its coordinator, Adelaja Odukoya, Tuesday, ASUU said enough can’t be enough “until the president moves to reposition the decaying public university education in the country.”
The statement read in part: “For the records Mr President, enough will not be enough in the struggle to reposition the public university education in Nigeria under this present administration and beyond as long as the Nigerian public universities are reduced to glorified secondary schools for the production of poor quality and globally uncompetitive, rejected and unemployable graduates.
“Nigerian academics remain one of the poorest paid scholars not only in Africa but the world; our universities are unattractive to students and scholars from across the globe; universities in the countries are made constituency projects and mushroomed for political exigencies.
“Nigerian universities, no thanks to IPPIS are run as government parastatals; Nigerian universities are seen as profit- centres where government and its functionaries can obtain money to fund its excessive gastronomical greed.”
The union blamed the government for the elongation of the strike which has lasted almost five months.
