3rd September, 2013
The Federal Government should shut all universities in Nigeria and declare a state of emergency to avoid a total collapse of education in the country, activist lawyer, Bamidele Aturu, has said.
Aturu said unless a drastic action is taken, Nigeria will continue to pretend to have higher education.
“We may have to return to the suggestion made by Professor Soyinka many years ago that we should close down all the universities and declare a state of emergency. When the sage first made that suggestion, it looked unrealistic and alarmist. Now, it is clear that we are pretending to have higher education,” Aturu said.
He said the agreement between ASUU and the Federal Government must be respected or higher education is “doomed in Nigeria”.
“It needs to be stressed that once an agreement has been reached by parties it ought to be respected and implemented. It is therefore unacceptable that the Federal Government should attempt to bully ASUU to accept that it can renege on the agreement as it pleases as it is doing at the moment,” Aturu said.
Aturu said humongous salaries by politicians have put the lives of millions of Nigerians at risk.
“In a country where politicians buy private jets at will and send their children to private primary schools overseas only the politicians would believe the lie that government cannot afford to fund higher education in the manner requested by ASUU-FGN Agreement,” he said.
—Simon Ateba