Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, the President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has said the Federal Government cannot stop funding universities in the country.
He said the government according to Section 18 of the Constitution, cannot stop funding the institutions.
He said on Channels TV “Sunrise Daily” on Thursday that the constitution is at variance with the statement of the Minister of Education Prof. Tahir Mamman that the FG will grant full autonomy to universities to explore new ways of funding its activities.
“There is no way the Federal Government of Nigeria would say they would not fund public universities because it is there in the law.
“It is there in the Constitution; look at Section 18 of the Constitution; it says ‘university, primary, and secondary are free.
“The only problem is that it is not judicable; that’s the only problem, so I said, I don’t think this government, from what we have seen, is going to say we are going to hands off from university.
“But the autonomy is here, ignited in year 2003 if we follow that law and allow it to run without interference from the bureaucrats, the university system would be fine.
“If you check the ratio of Nigeria’s education budget to our GDP, it’s one of the lowest in the world,” Osodeke said.
Persecondnews earlier reported that the students of the University of Jos, Plateau State, University of Lagos, Ibadan and others had protested following a 300 percent increase in school fees by the institutions
At the University of Lagos, over about 400 percent fee increase was announced with returning students expected to pay N100,000 and N190,000 depending on courses of study per session with medical and dentistry students paying the highest.
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