ASUU Reacts To FG’s Establishments Of New Varsities, Polytechnic

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has stated the current advent of new universities and polytechnics by the federal authorities is meant for the 2023 presidential campaigns.

The Union Staff in a press convention at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka on Wednesday said the recent moves amounted to politicizing tertiary education.

The federal authorities had in recent days announced the establishment of six new varsities across the country, bringing the total universities in Nigeria to about 176 universities each public and private.

Addressing journalists, the Owerri branch of ASUU questioned why the authorities should be setting up new universities at this integral time when it is unable to proper fund the current ones.

The coordinator of ASUU in the zone, Uzo Onyebinama said the union would ask the National Universities Commission, NUC, to review its Act to empower it to control the rate at which nation governments had been also establishing universities even when they couldn’t fund existing ones.

Onyebinama said: “We had asked the federal government in our various conferences why the need of creating universities when it can’t fund existing ones.

“But you know, as politicians, given that we are approaching the 2023 election, they want to have something for their campaign.

“When they visit those communities, they tell them they’ve given them universities. It’s not about opening universities, but about funding and sustenance. Why establish new universities when the ones on ground are mere shadows of themselves.

“If they fund the existing ones and expand their facilities, those ones can absorb whatever number of students these new ones will take. Truth is that the same new universities will tomorrow join other old ones to lament about funding. And another government will come up to establish theirs.

“Both the Federal and state governments are guilty of this and that is why we are asking the federal government to stop the proliferation of universities.”