The Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has accused the Federal Government of not being interested in funding public universities in the country.
It said that underfunding public universities in the country under the pretext that the government has no money was a deliberate attempt to introduce exorbitant school fees that the ordinary Nigerian cannot afford.
Chairperson of the branch, Ibrahim Inuwa, stated this at a press conference held at the ASUU Secretariat, ATBU, shortly after staging a peaceful protest on Tuesday.
It was reported that the Union held a congress, after which they staged the protest from their secretariat and marched to the main ATBU gate and back to their starting point.
They sang solidarity songs and carried placards with various inscriptions such as: “ASUU calls for deployment of UTAS”, “ASUU rejects prorating of academics’ salaries”, “ASUU is more patriotic than FGN officials”, “Release withheld salaries of academics”, “We say no to privatization of public universities”, “IPPIS & Pro-rata payment to academics are diversions from our demands,” among others.
He said: “It has become conspicuously clear to the Union that Nigerian governments are not interested in the development of Nigerian public universities to global university best practice: