The union also noted that the universities have now become
crisis centers with little to no hope of management.
A report by The PUNCH noted that plans were made to
establish no fewer than 32 federal universities, polytechnics, and colleges of
education across the country.
The issue of the proliferation of universities by the
government at all levels has also become a matter of concern for stakeholders.
Speaking in the statement issued on Sunday, the National
President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, urged the government to jettison the
“politicisation” of universities.
Speaking on the promise to release the withheld salaries of
members of the union by the administration of President Bola Tinubu, the
academic union noted that any further delay in the release of the monies might
lead to a complete mess of “what is left of the already devalued worth of the
money”.
“One major fallout of our last struggle was the government’s
decision to stop the salaries of our members as a ploy to force us back to work
even when the substantive issues in the strike action had remained unresolved.
Curiously, the seven-and-a-half months’ salaries remain unpaid even after we
have done the work for which those salaries were held.
“It is hoped that the process of payments is fast-tracked
before the unmitigated inflationary trends in the country make a complete mess
of what is left of the already devalued worth of the money.
“Proper funding and running of the public universities –
State and Federal – remains at the heart of our struggle for a university
system which can drive national development and compete internationally.
“This informs our concern, among others, with the issue of
the unbridled proliferation of state universities, which State Governors were
fastly turning to mere constituency projects.
“We have several instances of states that are unable to fund
their existing universities going ahead to establish more. In the process, such
state governments only succeeded in creating crises centres rather than centres
of excellence.
“Unfortunately, the Federal Government appears to have been
bitten by the bug of mushrooming universities without giving thought to how to
fund them. This sour point is still a work in progress for our union to combat.
“If our university system is to maintain the integrity of
credible universities, as known in other sane climes, more work is required to
get Nigerian politicians to embrace the idea of developmental universities as
against the prevalent over- politicisation of university education,” the
statement read.