The President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi has lamented that while the Federal Government foot-drags on meeting the Union’s demands, foreign and private Universities are recruiting its members.
Ogunyemi said this while featuring on a television program today, Thursday, 19th November.
He added that the government should not threaten ASUU members because they have options.
According to him, “Talking about options, it is interesting that they want to go to court and intimidate the union to surrender.
“You don’t do that with scholars. no country has ever survived it because we have options too.
Speaking about the options that the lecturers have begun to explore, ASUU chairman revealed that foreign and private universities have begun poaching his colleagues.
“We talk about brain-drain, now, I can tell you authoritatively that within the last two months, 25 scholars in the North-East have been harvested by this University in Yola.
“We know the owner. That is how it is happening. the private universities are poaching the public universities now because they can only thrive when the public universities crumble.
“We are also aware that some few months back, Ethiopia came to Nigeria and harvested as many as 200 professors and they are looking for more.
“I don’t know if the government wants their appointees to start teaching the students.
“Of course many of them don’t have their children in public universities, that is why they cannot feel it.
“Our scholars are our national assets and we should not allow them to be decimated.
Professor Biodun Ogunyemi admonished the government to speed up the integrity test it is carrying out on the software of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution presented by ASUU.
On Friday last week, the Union members had advised one another to seek alternative means of survival as Federal Government has not shown commitment to meet their demands.
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