The Zonal Coordinator of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Ibadan Zone, Dr Ade Adejumo, on Tuesday alleged that the Federal Government was making attempt to make students of federal universities pay a minimum of N350,000 for tuition fee.
Adejumo said this while addressing members of the Correspondents Chapel, Ibadan. He said it was vital for ASUU to let the public know that there could be labour crisis in the federal universities in the country, adding that the proposal led to the breakdown of the 2017/2018 renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement.
He said, “The union is again constrained to draw the attention of Nigerian public to an impending labour crisis in the Nigerian universities as a result of the insensitivity of the Nigerian government to issues critical to the survival of the educational system in Nigeria.
“It is no longer news that the renegotiation, which the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, promised was going to last for only six weeks, has broken down. “The reason for this very unfortunate development will appal most Nigerians. First, the leader of the government team, who was supposed to be an arbiter between the parties, assumed an arrogant attitude that sought to foist a predetermined mindset of government on the union.
“The union was confronted with a situation where the government is bent on imposing tuition fees, beginning from N350,000, on students in the Nigerian public-owned tertiary institutions. On the question as to how the students will raise such money, the answer that government has is that it will establish an Education Bank, where students will access credit facilities and payback on completion of their studies.”