Urges Tinubu to resolve ASUU crisis
Former Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian Newspaper, Mr Martins Oloja, has called for a national summit on education, administration and funding to improve its quality and quantity.
Oloja, who said the battle for restoring the lost glory in higher education in Nigeria must be waged holistically, urged the government to take concrete action towards resolving the crisis in the educational sector.
He spoke yesterday at the 2025 Registry Annual Lecture and Award Ceremony in his lecture titled: ‘Do We Need More or Better Tertiary Educational Institutions in Nigeria?’ at the Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti (EKSU).
Buttressing his assertion for the expediency of quantity and qualitative universities, he cited the World Higher Education Database in ten countries and their estimated number of universities, including the United States of America with over 4,000 universities, India with 3500, China with over 3,100 and Brazil with 1,200.
Others included Japan with 1,100, Russia with 1000, Mexico with over 900, Indonesia with over 800, Germany with over 700 and France with over 600.
“Let’s look at the expediency of quantity, too; we need more but qualitative tertiary institutions, too. I have consistently criticised my state for having four seemingly ill-equipped universities at the moment. But a recent survey has taught me some lessons that we need more universities, after all.
Most of the universities in Nigeria always have enough students at all times.
“We are more than 200 million at the moment with about 300 universities. Let’s look at the population of our students in secondary school seeking admission at all times.”
Speaking on the current nationwide strike by the university lecturers, he called on President Bola Tinubu to immediately direct his Education, Labour and Budget ministers to resolve the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the Federal Government crisis, which he said, had become a symbol of suffering and shame to the governments of the federation.
Oloja said, “The current administration at the federal and state levels should be told that I will continue to repeat the story I have told many times about what powers are needed to destroy any country. Yes, a South African teacher has said that you don’t need an atomic bomb to destroy any country.
“It only requires lowering the quality of education and allowing cheating in the examinations by the students. The result is that: Patients die at the hands of doctors; buildings collapse at the hands of engineers, money is lost at the hands of economists and accountants, humanity dies at the hands of religious scholars, justice is lost at the hands of judges, because “the collapse of education is the collapse of the nation.”
Speaking on the need for specialised universities, he said: “Let’s reflect on this: in the aviation sector today, aircraft are serviced abroad in Africa’s most populous nation. So, some experts have asked: “Can’t policymakers and NUC encourage proposals for specialised universities that can take care of this priority need in the aviation industry, instead of just licensing universities and replicating courses that are already available in existing ‘mega’ universities?
“Why do we get our children to apply and register for almost the same poorly funded courses, which do not trigger employability skills all over the country? The ordinariness of our curricula of studies has been worsening the employability index of Nigerian university graduates. Yet no one is thinking out of the box, in this regard.”
In his remarks, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Joseph Babalola Ayodele, noted that the theme of this year’s lecture, “Do We Need More or Better Tertiary Educational Institutions in Nigeria,” was both timely and apt.
He said: “It challenges us to critically assess our nation’s educational landscape, especially at a time when the clamour for access to university education is rising, yet concerns about quality and global competitiveness persist.”
In his welcome remarks, the University’s registrar, Mr Joseph Ife Oluwole, urged the participants to continue to build on their capabilities and to position themselves for global best practices.
