ASUU president, Fagge
The
Academic Staff Union of Universities has raised the alarm over an
alleged plan by the Federal Government to return the Structural
Adjustment Programme “through the back door” 24 years after its
introduction by the regime of the former dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi
Babangida (rtd) in 1989.
According to ASUU, government should reject “the reintroduction of SAP through the back door”.
It noted that its four months old strike would continue until government shows genuine commitment to the 2009 agreement.
The union said the introduction of what
it described as dictatorship of the International Monetary Fund and SAP
that was used to kill public schools in the late 1980s.
The chairman of ASUU, Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile Ife, Prof. Ade Akinola, in an electronic message to our
correspondent on Monday, said the government should show patriotism and
ensure that the university teachers return to work.
He said, “Patriotism demands that the
government should reject the dictate of the international financial
conglomerate and the reintroduction of SAP through the back door, under
the superintendence of the Minister of Finance, Dr. 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.
“In fact, patriotism makes it imperative
for the government to see, as ASUU foresaw four years ago, that the 2009
agreement constitutes the vital tool to mitigate the collapse of the
public university system, as we sadly already witnessed at the levels of
primary and secondary education, largely due to governments’ neglect.”
According to him, the public primary
schools thrived up till the late 1970s. Akinola said soon after,
palpable decay set in and by the end of 1980s the decay culminated into a
total collapse.
He added, “Similar fate gradually befell
the public secondary schools. This became pronounced with the advent of
SAP introduced by the Babangida administration. Thus, we started to
harvest public secondary education collapse, so much so that even the
Federal Government Colleges of the yore became unattractive.”
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Medical
Association has expressed great concern over what it described as
“continuous closure of Universities in Nigeria” due to the inability of
the Federal Government to resolve its face-off with ASUU members.
President, Dr. Osahon Enabulele, in a
statement issued on Monday, said the crises would impact negatively on
the quality of graduates being produced by Nigerian universities.
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