ASUU Strike: Professors Are Leaving Public Universities – Union President

The President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof Biodun Ogunyemi has said that lecturers, including professors, are leaving public tertiary institutions for other countries and private universities within the country due to federal government’s unwillingness to do its part in upgrading the quality of university education.

Ogunyemi made this known on Arise Television programme on Thursday (Morning Show) monitored by our correspondent.

“We are also aware that some few months back, Ethiopia came to Nigeria, and harvested as many as 200 professors and they are still looking for more. I don’t know if the government wants their appointees to start teaching the students. Of course, many of them don’t have their children in public universities, that is why they cannot feel it. Our scholars are our national assets and we should not allow them to be decimated.

“You have just talked about brain drain now, I can tell you authoritatively, within the last two months, 25 scholars from our universities in the North East have been harvested by this private university in Yola and you know the owner,” he said.

Recall that ASUU had on March 23, declared a strike action while accusing the federal government of failing to fulfil the terms of the memorandum of understanding of 2013 which borders largely on funding and equipping public universities.

THE WHISTLER reported that among ASUU’s demands are the proposed 110-billion-naira revitalization fund and the approval of its own payment model (University Transparency and Accountability Solution).

But the federal government had claimed that it could not raise the fund.

The spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of Education, Ben Bem Goong also told THE WHISTLER on Wednesday that the union could not determine how the federal should pay it members who are employees of government.

But Ogunyemi stressed that the federal government should stop disrespecting its own scholars as they are well sought after globally.

“And our professors are highly sought after; what we are warning Nigerian government is to prevent a second wave of brain drain. We had a first wave before we achieved the 1992 federal government/ASUU agreement; we were warning them,” he said.