Make Laws To Compel Children Of Public Officers To Study In Nigeria, ASUU Tells NASS

THE Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has urged the National Assembly to make laws that will compel children of public office holders to have their education in Nigeria.

The ASUU Chairman Emmanuel Osodeke made the call during the union’s meeting with the Federal Government represented by Labour Minister Chris Ngige on Thursday.

Osodeke lauded Ngige for demonstrating an uncommon faith in the country’s education system by allowing his children to have their education in Nigeria. He also hoped that other public officers would emulate the minister.

“I hope other ministers will follow the same step as you. I think you are the only minister whose children are in the country. We see others standing by their children outside the country during graduation,” he said.

“But we saw you standing by one of your children who graduated in Lagos. We hope that 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 a government appointment.”

Osodeke justified several strikes that had been embarked upon by the union, saying they were the only ways to force the government to fix the rot in Nigeria’s public education system.

He also blamed that nation’s insecurity on the neglect of the nation’s education system.

“The problem is that 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 for our children to attend and stop going outside the country to study.

“Children from other countries will come here too and pay to this country in hard currency.”