A former Education Minister, Dr Oby Ezekwesili, has said that both the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) failed to get it right in the making of the 2009 agreement that has become a subject crisis rocking the nation’s university system.She has therefore, called for a neutral approach to resolution on the kind of university system to be run in Nigeria.
Ezekwesili stated this while fielding questions from newsmen in Abuja, at the Unity Schools Old Students’ Association One-Day Summit/Dialogue on Education, Good Governance and National Unity.
She noted that there was absolutely no point of disagreement as to the necessity to rebuild the structure of universities, observing however, that the university system was not just about the physical structures.
The former Vice President of World Bank said what is paramount was the quality of the faculties, adding, that should have been the conversation between the government and ASUU.
She added that critical point of negotiation should be on addressing the challenges in terms of performance, accountability and reward and to design the kind of system that ensures that academics are duly rewarded according to the excellence, brilliance and the scholarship that they show.
“I think that is what is missing in the way that this drawn out issue of a disagreement between the government and ASUU has emerged and what I think should happen is that the two parties so far seemed to have failed to sign the ground for a principle negotiation,” she said.
The ex-Education Minister further said that the whole issues were no longer a matter between government and ASUU.
“This has become a matter between the people of Nigeria, government and ASUU. I think the citizens must now demand that there be a neutral approach at identifying what will be the solution to the kind of university system that we want to run,” she said.
She maintained that there was no time “because the rest of the world has used knowledge as a basis to completely leave us behind in the lower ranks of economic development.”
Ezekwesili admitted that she raised the negotiation team led by Gamaliel Onosode before leaving to take her appointment with the World in 2007.
She said the ASUU agreement was not signed during her tenure as Education Minister, adding that “when I was the Minister of Education, I personally got Mr Gamaliel Onosode, who I thought was a distinguished professional to lead the negotiation, but what subsequently happened after I left office in 2007 is open to interpretation of those who were part of the final negotiation that was said to have been signed in 2009.
Meanwhile, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Aminu Tambuwal, on Thursday, disclosed that the House was ready to amend any portion of the nation’s law or grant any request of appropriations from the executive arm of government to accommodate the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) so as to end the lingering strike by the union.
The speaker, who stated this after the presentation of the investigative report to the House by the House Committee on Education, however advised all concerned parties in the strike to reconsider their positions in the interest of the students and the future of education in the country.
The speaker said: “Once again, we call on ASUU and the Federal Government, in this case the executive arm of government to please, quickly bring the matter to an end and resolve it. And if there is any need for further appropriations to be made or any law to be amended to meet any of these conditions, the House of Representatives is faithfully ready to expeditiously address such requests. Please, we need our students back to their respective schools. I so plead.”
In a related development, Nigerian parents under the auspices of the National Parents/Teachers Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN), has asked both ASUU and the Federal Government to end their face-off to ensure the reopening of the universities.
The National President of the association, Alhaji Haruna Danjuma, who briefed newsmen at the end of the National Executive Council meeting of the association in Abuja on Thursday, said as parents, they have been able to successfully cage their children from going on street protest over the protracted strike.
Danjuma, who later became overwhelmed with emotion, spoke with journalists in tears. He intermittently used his handkerchief to wipe tears on his cheeks.
He warned that as parents, they did not want a situation where things would go out of hand in which the students would resort to street demonstration, demanding for their right to be in school.
Meanwhile, ASUU has asked the National Assembly to go beyond “begging” ASUU to call off its strike by plugging spending leakages in government to allow for the provision of needed infrastructure for the masses.
ASUU also lashed out at the Senate Vice Chairman of the Committee on Education, Professor Sola Adeyeye, over his comments on the ongoing ASUU strike on why a Professor will demand payment to supervise postgraduate students.
A release signed by the University of Ibadan chairman of the union, Dr Olusegun Ajiboye, tagged: “The Goofing Professor Adeyeye: Senate and Begging Comments,” said Professor Adeyeye is using public funds to train all his children abroad hence lacks knowledge on the situation of things in Nigerian universities.
Ajiboye also described the comment of Senate President, David Mark, that ASUU will lose public sympathy if it does not call off its strike as a careless talk, saying that the Senate had already lost its credibility among Nigerians over its bogus allowances and its perpetual anti-masses stance as opposed to the progressives in the House of Representatives.
According to Dr Ajiboye, people like Professor Adeyeye ought to have shamefully kept quiet when issues concerning Nigerian education is discussed.”
He said: “The ‘weeping senator’ as popularly called in his constituency over non-performance, became a professor at a private university and has private orientation. As a professor at the Duquesne University, USA, Professor Adeyeye enjoyed flexible single and family health care coverage, including vision and dental insurance, disability benefits and life insurance, tuition remission for employees and family members, retirement savings plan with a generous eight per cent university contribution for employees with immediate vesting schedule, family leave, paid time off for vacation and holidays and unpaid time for personal leaves of absence, comprehensive employee training programmes which promote professional development, access to a recreation centre and wellness programmes. The question Professor Adeyeye should answer is where in Nigeria does a professor enjoy all these with condusive learning environment? What is the ratio of students to a lecturer in Nigerian universities? Where else in the world will a professor supervise up to 35 students in a session?”
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