Conference of Alumni Association of Nigerian Universities (CAANU) has called on the Federal Government to get critical stakeholders like the representatives of Vice Chancellors and universities alumni in subsequent negotiations with university labour unions to ensure harmony in the universities.
The association disclosed this in a communique released at the end of its 2022 first quarter meeting held at the University of Ibadan.
The Association said that such involvement would 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 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 was killing the already comatose university system in the country, thereby urging the Federal Government to give the funding of the universities the attention that it requires.
It also called on the federal government to 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.
It 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.
It, however, 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.
The association tasked stakeholders and the public to desist from every attempt to determine and influence the 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 also suggested that the governing council of the universities be strengthened with more external members to reduce bias in decision making.
