The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has asked members of the National Assembly to make laws preventing children of political office holders from studying abroad.
ASUU also asked political office holders under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to withdraw their children from foreign universities and enroll them in Nigerian higher institutions.
According to ASUU, doing so will reveal the level of decay in Nigerian universities to the government officials.
President of the union, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, made the call in Abuja at the reconvened meeting with the federal Government team led by Chris Ngige, the Minister of Labour and Employment.
Osodeke said, “We hope that the government will make it mandatory that if you accept a government appointment, your children must attend universities in the country.
“The National Assembly must formulate a law that if you take an appointment, your children must study here. If you know that your children cannot be here, don’t take government appointments.
“When you hear those in the government who send their children to schools abroad say that ASUU goes on strike, they should know that strike is not the problem. The problem is the issues afflicting the universities; nobody is interested in tackling them.
“Look at the budget we have seen recently, it is exactly the same thing we have been seeing. Nothing has changed. And this country is paying the high price for neglecting education – the banditry you see, the kidnapping and what have you, is because people are not being taken care of.
“That is why ASUU has been struggling, so that Nigerian universities will be revamped, so that as our children go outside for learning, other children from other countries will come here too and pay to this country in hard currency.”
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