Afenifere berates Buhari over comment on education at NOUN

Olubadan urges stakeholders to intervene in FG, ASUU face-off

The pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere, has condemned the assertion made by President Muhammadu Buhari at the 2022 convocation ceremony of the National Open University (NOUN) on education.

Buhari, in a speech delivered on his behalf by the Acting Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mr. David Gende, in Abuja, at the weekend, had said that the root cause of crises in Nigeria could be traced to ignorance.

He said: “It is a common knowledge that the root cause of the recorded crises of nationhood in Nigeria is as a result of ignorance, which can only be corrected through the provision of education.”

BUT the Afenifere, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Jare Ajayi, while lauding the President for acknowledging that challenges of nationhood could be traced to lack of proper education, then asked the government, headed by him, what it is doing about the said problem.

“It is on record that the education sector suffers most under this administration. At no time in the history of the country had education been battered as much as it is under this government. In February, the Ministers of Education and Labour, Adamu Adamu and Chris Ngige, visited President Buhari in a London hospital to wish him quick recovery. The visit occurred at a time that university lecturers were on strike. There was no report that the education crisis that was hot then and now was discussed – let alone resolved during the visit.

“As at the time of writing this, members of the Academic Staff Union of the Universities (ASUU) are still on strike just as some other unions in the tertiary education sector are threatening to go on strike as well. No indication at all that the matter is of interest in any way to the government.

“How then are we to take the President’s declaration at NOUN convocation serious? Ajayi queried.

MEANWHILE, the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Lekan Balogun, Alli Okunmade ll, has urged all stakeholders in the education sector to intervene and work towards a quick resolution of the logjam between the Federal Government and ASUU, which has paralysed academic activities.

Oba Balogun made the appeal during a courtesy visit to his Alarere palace by the executive members of the Conference of Alumni Association of Nigerian Universities (CAANU), led by its Chairman, Prof. Ahmed Tijani Mora.

Olubadan, therefore, urged the alumni association to reach out to the two parties in the dispute to sheathe their swords and give room for amicable resolution.

Mora said the visit was to identify with the monarch and congratulate him on his ascension to the throne of Olubadan. praying that the metropolis would witness tremendous growth and development during Oba Balogun’s reign.