Shehu Sani, a former lawmaker from Kaduna State has advised President Muhammadu Buhari on what he needs to stop doing about Nigerian universities.
Mr Buhari had last week lambasted tertiary institutions in the country for their slow pace in making discoveries and inventions.
“It is not heart-warming that in our over 58 years of independence, Nigerian universities are slow in discoveries and inventions,” the president said on Saturday while delivering key note address at the fourth convocation of the Federal University, Dutsinma (FUDMA) Katsina State.
“Research, critical thinking, moral dispositions, discoveries, and inventions should find natural habitats in our universities, as they do in several other universities in the world.
“Universities are supposed to be strong drivers of the country’s development initiatives for sustainable development,” the Nigerian leader represented by Hafiz Abubakar, former Deputy Governor of Kano State.
The president also pledged to look into the infrastructural decays of the institutions, promising to release N208 billion for the projects, a far cry from the over N1trillion demanded by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
But reacting, the Kaduna lawmaker urged the president to stop condemning the tertiary institutions in the country because they are poorly funded.
“It’s unfair for the political elites to underfund the universities and ferry their children to the best and expensive schools in other countries and turnaround to scold and condemn the Nigerian University system.Softly Baba,” Mr Sani said in a tweet Sunday evening.
It’s unfair for the political elites to underfund the universities and ferry their children to the best and expensive schools in other countries and turnaround to scold and condemn the Nigerian University system.Softly Baba.
— Senator Shehu Sani (@ShehuSani) June 16, 2019
Top politicians in the country largely do not send their children to study in Nigerian universities often because of poor funding and industrial actions by school authorities which will inturn extend the number of years students are expected to spend in school.
Buhari is one of such political elites whose children studied abroad despite their father claiming to be poor when he sought the exalted office during the 2015 presidential election.
