The Federal Government is allegedly uninterested in supporting the nation’s public institutions, according to the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University in Bauchi, a division of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
According to the report, the deliberate attempt to impose excessive school fees that the average Nigerian cannot pay was made by underfunding public colleges in the nation under the excuse that the government had no money.
This was said by the branch’s chairperson, Ibrahim Inuwa, at a news conference held at the ASUU Secretariat, ATBU, following a nonviolent protest on Tuesday.
After holding a congress, the Union staged the demonstration from their secretariat, marched to the main ATBU gate, then returned to where they had started.
They performed songs of unity while carrying signs that read, among other things, “ASUU calls for the deployment of UTAS,” “ASUU rejects prorating of academics’ salaries,” “ASUU is more patriotic than FGN officials,” “Release withheld salaries of academics,” “We say no to privatization of public universities,” and “IPPIS & Pro-rata payment to academics are diversions from our demands.”
The development of Nigeria’s public universities in line with international best practices has become glaringly obvious to the Union, he claimed.
It is clear that colleges are being purposefully underfunded under the pretense that there is no money, in order to impose astronomical tuition costs that are out of the grasp of the children of the masses and, ultimately, privatize these universities to themselves.
“After the 8-month strike was put on hold by a court decision and the efforts of well-meaning Nigerians, the government stooped so low as to withhold ASUU members’ salaries and only pay them pro rata for the month of October.
The Union opposes the casualization of academics in Nigeria.
