A long standing proposition by the Chairman of ROOTSTV NIGERIA, Dumebi Kachikwu demanding that measures be put in place to stop children of public office holders from schooling in foreign institutions appears to have gained the attention of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
ASUU’s position was contained in a statement on Saturday by the Akure zone of the union signed by the zonal Coordinator, Prof. Olu Olu Olufayo and the FUTA ASUU branch Chairman, Dr. Olayinka Awopetu.
The statement from the university lecturers pointed that “members of the ruling class and their cohorts have their wards schooling abroad, so they have no commitment to end ASUU strike since political office has become occupational rather than public service.”
Recall that media mogul has used his popular weekly TV programme Sunday Nuggets to suggest that the most effective way of stopping the ongoing menace in the country’s public school system especially the universities is the adoption of strict legislative and administrative measures to mandate the children and dependants of all public servants (elected and appointed) to attend public schools in Nigeria.
The crusader for good governance has continually insisted that until sons and daughters of presidents and governors attend the same universities as the sons and daughters of ordinary Nigerians, the rot in the system would continue to deteriorate.
He opined that it is only when children from privileged homes begin to feel the pinch of continuous disruption in academic programmes as a result of incessant strikes that the authorities would begin to view the state of affairs in the public education system with greater commitment.
Beyond education, Kachikwu also wants public officers in Nigeria to be stopped accessing health services in foreign countries. Like his intervention on the now customary ASUU strikes, the CEO of ROOTSTV NIGERIA called on the legislators to enact laws that would make it unacceptable for any public officers to jet abroad for treatment at the slightest sign of ill health.
He has spoken out strongly against the national embarrassment of the president and senior presidency officials and governors of states running to get the best medical attention in foreign hospitals while they allow the public health facilities in Nigeria to collapse leaving thousands of compatriots to die helplessly.
President Muhammadu Buhari in 2017 spent close to seven months in the UK treating an undisclosed ailment. The president’s health emergency led to revelations that the State House Clinic which was set up to strictly attend to the health concerns of the president, his immediate family and that of the vice president and members of his family do not have routine drugs even after billions of naira have been budgeted for the running of the facility.
ASUU also weighed in on the nation’s health crises toeing Kachikwu’s line in calling for a ban on foreign health services for government officials.
The university dons called for an act of parliament to compel all political office holders, appointees and their dependents to seek medical attention only in Nigeria.
Like Kachikwu, ASUU believes that until public officers and members of their families are made to access the same medical facilities that members of the general public use and send their children and wards to public universities, the current rot in the health and education sectors would continue to go from bad to worse.
Public universities in Nigeria have been shut down for the past eight months as a result of a lingering strike by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities who are reportedly clamouring for better conditions of service and general improvement in the quality of infrastructure and learning facilities in the university system in the country.
