By Oluwatosin Maliki
The President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, has said that the Federal Government cannot totally back out from funding universities.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily show on Thursday, Osodeke said it is clearly written in the Constitution that the Federal Government must fund and support public universities.
The ASUU Boss was reacting to a report where, the Minister of Education Prof. Tahir Mamman, was quoted to have said that the Federal Government will initiate new ways of funding tertiary education by granting full autonomy to universities to explore new sources of financing their activities.
He said, “There is no way the Federal Government of Nigeria would say they would not fund public universities because it is there in the law. It is there in the Constitution, look at section 18 of the Constitution, it says ‘university, primary and secondary are free,” Osodeke said.
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Osodeke remained cautious about drawing conclusion on the government’s intentions, he noted that if the law is followed to run university operations without any interference from bureaucrats, there would be little to worry about in terms of funding.
“The only problem is that it is not judicable, that’s the only problem so I said I don’t think this government from what we have seen is going to say we are going to hands off from university. But the autonomy is here, ignited in year 2003 if we follow that law and allow it to run without interference from the bureaucrats, the university system would be fine.”
In addition, he noted that if Nigeria would commits greater allocation to education like countries in Europe are doing, then universities will have enough funds to sustain itself.
ASUU don’t believe that allowing universities to function autonomously, following the provisions of the law, could result in an effective higher education system in Nigeria.