President Muhammadu Buhari remains the worst to have occupied the number one position in the history of Nigeria, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), maintained on Sunday, saying posterity would not fail to place him as so.
Tribune, quotes Emmanuel Osodeke, President of the union who gave the damning verdict as insisting that as far as its members were concerned, the government remained a disaster, especially with regard to public education, adding that Nigeria and its people must never witness a repeat of such an administration.
Osodeke, who acknowledged that even though things had been bad in the sector over the years, Buhari took the trophy as the worst of them all from all ramifications, blamed both the outgoing federal and state governments for the poor record, saying those in the corridors of power did not give the sector meaningful attention but took it with levity as if the sector was unimportant.
The ASUU boss, while stating that successive budgetary allocations to the sector under the outgoing government were not only small but reducing each year, explained that while the figure in the early year 2020, for example, was in the region of nine to 10 percent of the total budget, it greatly came down drastically under this administration to something around 4.3 percent as was the case of last year, the worst in the history of Nigeria’s educational system.
Lamenting that even at that part of the money was not released, Osodeke said a government that allowed ASUU to go on strike for eight months without meaningful intervention to address the fundamentals that led to the action even with less than a month to exit, for example, was anti-people and anti-development.
He also regretted how under the same government Nigerian lecturers and other school workers were being owed several months’ salaries some of them up up to 20 months, adding that all the problems facing tertiary education were similar to that of primary and secondary education with the situation getting worse each day.
While declaring that public education at all levels in Nigeria was no longer attractive to parents to enroll their children, he emphasised that many students were sitting on bare floors and windows having lessons and inside leaked roofs and dilapidated classrooms, among others.
Pointing out that there were many more examples to conclude that Buhari’s government was a “disaster,” he said at the moment, the only hope was for the next government to declare a state of emergency in the sector and repair the massive destruction that had been done to the sector, particularly under the outgoing administration.