Proposed Buhari varsity project disastrous, says ASUU

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has described the proposed plan to establish a private university after President Muhammadu Buhari by his wife, Aisha, as a disaster.

It stated that the motive confirmed why the Nigerian leader had allegedly kept reducing the budgetary votes of education since he assumed office on May 29, 2015.

Chairman of the University of Ibadan chapter of the union, Professor Deji Omole, and its former national treasurer, Professor Ademola Aremu, addressed newsmen on the issue yesterday in the Oyo State capital.

Hajia Buhari had at the weekend during a town hall meeting in Yola, Adamawa State stated that she was floating the institution in partnership with some foreigners.

According to the duo, the president should immortalise himself by revatalising the publicly funded education sector.

Omole said: “When I also heard about the proposed private university to be named after Mr. President, I just looked at it as a joke taken too far. If we have a president in a country that has simply refused to fund public education and all we get from the family of the First Lady is to establish a private university in collaboration with some foreigners, to me, I think it is a disaster for this country and for a sitting president.

“The implication is that Nigerians should know that this leadership does not believe in publicly funded education. Nigerians should support the struggle for the government to take education as a core investment upon which this country will be liberated. It is not the children of the rich that will solve the problems of Nigeria but the children of the poor and the tool they need is quality education.”

On his part, Aremu noted: “I do not think that she (Aisha) is serious. We already have universities that not taken care of. Since they are policy makers, they will now formulate policies that would ground public institutions for their interests to thrive.

“I thought we have actually left that era. I could remember that Obasanjo established Bells and we condemned it. Atiku raised his own as former Vice President. If you have private interests, you should not hold public offices.”