From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Conference of Alumni Association of Nigerian Universities (CAANU) has asked the Federal Government to involve critical stakeholders like the representatives of Vice Chancellors and universities alumni in subsequent negotiations with university labour unions.
The Association said that such involvement will provide opportunities for all stakeholders to make suggestions to the contentious issues so that the representatives of Federal Government would collate and review all the suggestions for informed decision.
The suggestion was contained in a communique released by CAANU at the end of its 2022 first quarter meeting held at the University of Ibadan.
The communique which was signed by CAANU President, Prof. Ahmed Tijjani Mora, urged the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, fulfill the agreements it reached with the universities labour unions so that industrial harmony can return to the Universities.
It noted that the recurrent industrial actions in the university system are killing the already comatose university system in the country, thus urging the Federal Government to give the funding of the universities the attention that it requires, and also show unalloyed commitment to the provision of infrastructures, equipments and facilities to the universities to ease the process of teaching and learning in a conducive environment.
CAANU appealed to the federal and states governments to desist from politicising the creation of Universities when, obviously, the government is unable to fund the already established ones.
Meanwhile, university alumni association condemned the unfortunate protests that started after the announcement of Prof. Adebayo Simeon Bamire as the 12th substantial Vice Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, by the University’s
Governing Council.
“A protest based on the failure to appoint an indigene of the location of an educational institution is a show of the level of decadence and ignorance in the Nigerian
society which the University should correct.
“While we appreciated the necessary relationship between the town and the gown, we need to know that it is the gown that should influence the town with its positive and refined thoughts and not otherwise,” it said.
CAANU, thus, asked all stakeholders and the public to desist from every attempt to determine, influence appointments and other exclusive internal concerns of the universities with sentiments like ethnicity, religiosity, political affiliations and other negative tendencies which had already placed the country in a fragile position.
It advised the Universities Alumni as enlightened members of the public to begin deliberate and constructive orientation of the public concerning the relationship between the universities and the host communities in
particular and the public in general.
It also suggested that the governing council of the universities be strengthened with more external members to reduce bias in decision making.