The Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria, an NGO, has urged President Bola Tinubu to save the nation’s education system from complete collapse and reaffirmed his pledge to give it the attention it needs.
The group was responding to new threats from members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, or SSANU, over the non-payment of outstanding salaries, which recently forced a week-long warning strike in all universities. The group denounced what it called “open and shameful neglect” that pervaded the country’s educational system.
In a statement signed by the MMWG National Coordinator, Ibrahim Abdullahi and issued on Thursday, the group said President Tinubu’s administration “must be different in addressing industrial matters capable of causing educational backwardness in the country.”
It noted with regret that the federal government under former President Muhammadu Buhari “was notorious for non-caring attitude on educational and health matters which resulted in terrible several strike actions that caused setbacks for the country.”
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The group, however, said that President Tinubu’s assurance on “bye-bye to strikes, lock-outs and industrial instability” must be effected to allow better education to flourish in Nigeria.
It recalled that the Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman and the Minister of State, Yusuf Sununu, initially claimed ignorance of the SSANU demands when the warning strike started recently and wondered whether they have taken any steps “to prevent a full-blown strike from happening soon in our educational system; since the warning strike ended.”
MMWG, therefore, called on the ministers to prevent the impending SSANU strike again by addressing all issues at stake without further delay.
On the non-collection of several billions of Naira by 24 states from the Universal Basic Education Commission, UBEC to address educational development in schools across the Federation, the group said “This has shown how less the state governors rated the education industry in Nigeria.”
“While the governors rhetorically speak on educational development, their non-payment of counterpart funding for the past five to ten years has shown that they work against the sector, especially at primary, junior and senior secondary levels which are the foundations of proper education, because their own biological children attend elitist schools.
