By IBUKUN EMIOLA

Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan (UI) branch, has decried the move by National Assembly to create additional 47 federal universities.

UI ASUU Chairman, Prof. Ayo Akinwole, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Tuesday on the sidelines of its scholarship awards to some indigent students.

Akinwole expressed concern over the planned creation of additional federal universities when government was still struggling to fund the existing ones.

According to him, the Federal Government is still battling to maintain the quality of the 52 universities it currently has.

“Thinking of adding 47 more universities, we begin to wonder what the objective is. The objective cannot be noble at all.

“If it is noble, you will see the seriousness in the way government is handling the existing ones,” Akinwole said.

He noted that since government had continually seen university education as the cheapest, it had shown little or no interest in paying salaries and allowances being owed universities.

“Perhaps the House of Representatives and the federal government should answer the question: ‘Why are they establishing 47 new universities when they have not taken care of the ones we have?” he queried.

The ASUU chairman described the removal of tertiary institutions from IPPIS as mere ‘noisemaking,’ as there had been no letter to that effect to the universities.

“No letter, as we speak, has been communicated, either to the bursary or the heads of the institutions.

“All we have been seeing is so much motion without movement,” Akinwole said.

He also said that government had not paid them four months’ salaries as being claimed.

He said the salary adjustment that was included in 2023 had yet to be effected, adding that academic staff members in universities were still earning salaries as approved in the negotiated document of 2009.

He, therefore, urged the government to always effect its policies before making pronouncements. (NAN)

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