Mohammed Ibrahim, the President of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, has accused the Federal Government of focusing on trivial matters while neglecting the education sector and youths.
Ibrahim said the universities were forced to close down due to the government’s insincerity, adding that the standard of education had continued to decline. He was speaking at the 2022 May Day celebration in Abuja on Sunday.
He said, “Our universities have been forced to shut down due to the insincerity of government to keep to its promises. The standard of education continues to go down due to the insensitivity of government and the inability to provide conducive teaching, learning, and work environment through lack of basic facilities that would make them compete with their peers in other parts of the world.
‘’The morale of university workers is dampened by the poor pay package and the government appears to be paying lip service to funding education. It is very clear that government pays more attention to frivolous things and has neglected the youths that are said to be the leaders of tomorrow.’’
The SSANU president bemoaned the plight of Nigerian workers, saying they were facing perilous times due to insecurity, economic hardship, and other issues.
He noted, ‘’This year’s Workers Day comes when Nigerian workers are passing through perilous times. Nigerian workers and indeed members of our great union are confronted with diverse challenges like the rising spate of armed banditry, kidnappings, insurgency, economic hardship, and worst of all, the inability of the government to keep to agreements entered into with all the university-based unions in 2009.
‘’Our members have been denied payment of new Minimum Wage Consequential Adjustment arrears and a backlog of earned allowances in addition to other violations of our rights and privileges. Our universities have been forced to shut down due to the insincerity of government to keep to its promises.’’
He urged the administration to resolve the ongoing university workers’ strike as well as address the country’s concerns.
‘’Toying with the future of our children will spell doom for our dear country. I call on the government to look into the demands of all the university-based unions and take urgent steps to address them so that our children will go back to school,’’ the union urged.
