The International Coordinator of Concerned Human Rights Nigeria, Declan Ihekaire has described the on-going strike action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) as a ‘conspiracy theory of the federal government against the Nigerian masses,’ adding that the lapses in the education sector of the country are an intentional move to advance the cause of privately owned tertiary institutions.
“You find out that gradually they are killing the public educational sector while they are energising the privately owned institution,” he said during an interview on Channels Television’s breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, on Wednesday.
To further prove his point, he alleged that all local government councillors in Nigeria have their children enrolled in privately owned institutions and not government owned schools.
He also accused the government of being insincere about its claim to reverberate public tertiary institutions.
He said that the federal government entered into an agreement with ASUU In 2009 to revamp the education sector with a total of N1.2 trillion, a deal the federal government is yet to fulfill. “We should begin to have a federal government that should start thinking about the people first and stop reneging on agreements.
“It is something they should honour,” he said.
Responding to federal government’s claim that the opposition has infiltrated ASUU, Ihekaire said this is ‘nice’. “It is a nice statement”
“I remember they said that too in January during the January 2012 uprising when they said that we, the civil societies, are opposition. It was OK but the issue is that” so many committees were set up afterwards in a bid to resolve the situation.
The civil societies have decided to back up ASUU because “as a parent, I’m afraid that I might not be able to send my children to public institutions in the nearest future. I need to guard the future of my children”.
