The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), yesterday asked the Minister of State for Education, Mr. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, to resign as minister and engage in farming.
The union referred to the statement credited to the minister that striking lecturers should consider farming as an alternative profession.
It added that the statement was a reflection of the Minister’s shallow understanding of the academic profession and the low premium that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration placed on education.
The minister during an interview on ARISE NEWS Channel, the broadcast arm of THISDAY Newspaper, suggested farming to the lecturers, who are currently on strike, insisting that they cannot dictate how they should be paid by their employers.
But ASUU Chairman, University of Ibadan chapter, Prof. Ayo Akinwole, in a statement issued yesterday, said the minister has displayed his naivety on educational matters.
He said the scarcity of farmers in the country is a reflection of the failure of the federal government he is part of to make farming secured for legitimate farmers, calling on Nwajiuba to resign his appointment and take to farming as a worthy national service.
The ASUU boss said the union is unlike the minister who pursues selfish agenda, maintaining that the union remained resolute not to pursue only the welfare of its members while downplaying the infrastructure collapse and underfunding of public universities but decided to continue to fight ‘parasites’ like Nwajiuba who preside over a ministry where no Nigerian university is in the top 100 in the world.
Akinwole stated that if the government of Buhari is not paying lip service to education, it would not have consistently reduced budgetary allocation and funding to education since the assumption of office.
