Election break: ASUU faults FG’s closure of universities
Written by Olarotimi Oshin on February 11, 2023
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Friday, took a swipe at the Federal government for ordering the closure of all universities in the country on the premise of holding general elections a couple of weeks away, saying “the directive is totally illegal”.
The president of the union, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, explained this ASUU’s position in an exclusive interview with Saturday Tribune, saying both the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu and the leadership of the National Universities Commission(NUC) were goofed for taking such a step.
He said the decision to close down universities or not, and also announce resumption, especially in a situation like the forthcoming general elections rests solely on the senate of each university and not on any minister or his representative.
He noted that it is the laws guiding the operations of universities anywhere globally are saying and Nigeria cannot be different.He said what the Federal Government should have done in this regard was to ask the senate of every university to examine situation of things and decide if their schools would need to be closed down or not and for how long, rather than for one minister sending NUC to the vice-chancellors to unilaterally issue a memo for closure.
