President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, has described the education sector under former President Muhammadu Buhari as catastrophic.
He also said the administration of former President Buhari was the worst thing to happen to the country, lamenting that no government had ever given the education sector a paltry five per cent as the administration did.
He further noted with dismay that some lecturers had not collected salaries for about 30 months, while some had yet to collect the consequential adjustment paid about two years ago.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Vanguard, the ASUU boss advised President Bola Tinubu to ensure that the person he would appoint as the minister to oversee education sector was someone who knew what education was all about.
Asked to rate Buhari’s administration in terms of funding of the education, he said: “It was catastrophe, that was the worst that even happened to this country. There is no regime that had given five per cent to education but he did and even that five per cent was not monitored.
As I speak today during that regime, University of Lagos, University of Ibadan, Ife, ABU get just eleven million per month for overhead cost.
”Meanwhile, my university (Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, Abia State) spent more than N20 million on diesel a month, UNILAG should spend not less than N50 million to N100 million on diesel a month but the government just gave N11 million. Here (Michael Okpara University), they gave N5 million and it’s hardly released.
