The university system in Nigeria is never far away from trouble. Another one is looming, a more involving one as the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU) turns to a broader #BringBackTheirChildren campaign.
As if a prelude to that, ASUU National president, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, has served what must be a chilling appetizer for those who have have a hand in the decay and collapse of public universities in Nigeria but who then took their children to other countries whose elite takes education seriously:
“We were in a state university in Abuja zone and we saw a room, 12 by 12, with 16 female students who have stoves. In that small room, you have 16 stoves, how would they survive as human beings?
As I speak to you today, look at your professors here, none of them earns up to $800 monthly but a lecturer will publish a paper and it will cost him $200 to publish it and he needs it for his promotion. How can we have peace?
This country is heading towards complete annihilation and we must prevent it and that is why we are here. Our problem has nothing to do with ethnicity, religion or where you are. There are just two classes of Nigerians, those being oppressed and just about 10 percent oppressing these 90 percent”
- Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, ASUU National president speaking in Bauchi October 28th, 2021
