There are too many universities in Nigeria —ASUU President

The President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof Biodun Ogunyemi, on Saturday accused the federal and state governments of multiplying without adequately funding universities in the country.

The ASUU president stated this at a town hall meeting organized by the University of Jos chapter of the union.

He said the federal and state governments were establishing universities without adequately funding them, adding that some of the universities were needless.

Ogunyemi said: “The federal and state governments are establishing universities without adequately funding them.

“For instance, why do we need a university of transportation, or that of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)?

“All these can be taken care of by the existing public universities.

“So, proliferation of university education will not help us; it is grossly affecting the quality of education in the country.”

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The ASUU president lamented that state governments had made universities a constituency project, rather than centre of development.

He added that if care is not taken, university education in the country would go into comatose just like the current state of primary education system.

Ogunyemi added: “What we see today is that state governments have turned the establishment of universities to constituency project; every governor wants to have a university in his constituency.

“This is really sad, and if we are not careful, university education will collapse like the public primary schools in the country.

“So, what ASUU is really fighting for is to stop the total collapse. Our demands are not selfishly motivated.”

He advised the federal government to fix public universities, saying such institutions can be spinners of revenue generation if their problems are effectively tackled.

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