Newsfront Online …Telling the Public as it is
Special Assistant, Public Communications to Atiku Abubakar, Phrank Shaibu, has said that former President Goodluck Jonathan lectured the current administration on how to resolve the strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
Shaibu, stated this when he featured on Daily Politics, a Trust TV programme, where he said the lingering ASUU strike poses danger to the Nigerian public. ASUU had been on strike since February but on Wednesday, the National Industrial Court ordered the striking lecturers to end their seven-month-old industrial action.
Reacting to this development, Shaibu said: “If I were a lecturer, I’ll just go to class, cross my legs and watch the students. This court issue can’t resolve the crisis. They are only scratching the surface and that goes to show that they have no capacity to resolve this problem.
“Of course, this has been a recurring decimal. But then it’s been better handled…. The other day, President Goodluck Jonathan, offered free tutorials to them on how to manage the strike.
The danger is this; It’s not just about ASUU. I want to be incumbent on ASUU to educate and sensitise the mass of our people, the more on their demands. It’s not about lecturers’ salaries. It’s about the collapse of the educational system. It’s about the decayed educational system.
“We have over 1.9million students minimum that write JAMB every year in the last three years, more than less than 1.9 million. And the current capacity of our universities oscillates between 250 to 400,000 students, meaning about 1.4million students who would write JAMB cannot even have access to university education.
“Where does that leave us? We now have one called issues of educational tourism in Ghana. Some even go to Benin. when they go there, they contribute to the economy of Benin Republic, contribute to the economy of Ghana. These students rent houses, they pay school fees, buy food and do other things. And tomorrow we begin to complain that nothing’s working in Nigeria. How can things work?”
(vanguardngr.com )
