President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday accused the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, of being complicit in corruption in the tertiary education sector in the country.
This came on a day Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, said President Buhari has accepted the report on the engagement of members of the House with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, on how to resolve the ongoing strike by the union.
This is even as the Federal Government approved the registration of two rival groups to ASUU, the Congress of University Academics, CONUA, and the National Association of Medical and Dental Academics, NAMDA, in what appears an attempt to break the ranks of striking ASUU.
But ASUU in a prompt response said President Buhari’s allegations are unfounded, and noted that the registration of two new trade unions by the government for academic staff in the university system is inconsequential and poses no threat to its existence.
On corruption in the universities, President Buhari made the accusation in his address at the fourth National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Sector, jointly organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, and the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board, JAMB, held at the Banquet hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The President also accused lecturers of deploying disguised terminologies to perpetuate corruption in the ivory towers, a development he said, impinges on the fight against the menace in the education sector.
He equally accused management of tertiary institutions of not being transparent in the expenditure of Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, asking stakeholders and the media to beam their searchlights on it.
