…’You should be selling spare parts by the roadside’, lecturers tell Nwajiuba
From Kehinde Adewole
Angry members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Tuesday took critical swipes at the Minister of State for Education, Mr. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, for a comment he made which they described as careless.
While reacting to ASUU’s stand against reopening of Universities , Nwajiuba had told the striking Union members, who have vowed not to resume because government was yet to address their demands, to consider leaving the teaching profession for farming, stressing that more farmers are needed in the country.
Enraged at the Minister’s comment, some lecturers on Tuesday, made several harsh comments against the government and the Minister in particular.
Speaking to our Correspondent, a Lecturer with University of Lagos, (UNILAG), who asked for anonymity to forestall possible witchhunt said: “What the Minister of state for Education said in reaction to ASUU’s refusal to resume and our rejection of the evil IPPIS has exposed him as an ignorant person with regards to the University system. We wonder how we end up with such people in government. Does the Minister think the University system is just like that of any other parastatal in government? The University is a global community with global connection, reach and system. It is not like a typical local Nigerian Ministry where government can just decide to breathe down on the neck of civil servants. The University system constantly compete with her peers in the global community. It is not a local system where you give handouts to some ‘conquered’ civil servants.”
Another angry lecturer, Ambali Usman, who spoke from the University of Maiduguri, said: “Nwajiuba or whatever he is called shouldn’t have been a member of the Buhari cabinet because he is so ignorant and talks carelessly like his co-traveler, Ngige. He should be selling spare parts by the roadside’ like his fellow brothers from the east. It is very wicked of him to tell lecturers, who are indeed intellectuals, to go and farm,” he fumed.
Okonkwo Uche, also a Lecturer at the University of Ibadan, said: ” With the likes of Nwajiuba as a minister of state for Education, and his accomplice, Chris Ngige, our University system will continue to suffer and will never be able to compete favourably with other Ivory Towers in saner climes of the global community. Imagine, he talking carelessly about a system he has no adequate knowledge about. This is the price we pay in this country when we allow favouritism and neptoism to blind us and put the square pegs in round holes. By the way, does he think being a University lecturer is as cheap as playing sychopancy to some idiots in government so you could get your name listed as cabinet member? .This man is a big shame to the Buhari government.”
See some of lecturers’ reactions below…
