ASUU To Sanction FUTO VC, Others Over Communication Minister, Pantami’s Professorship

The National Executive Council, NEC, of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has vowed to sanction members, including the Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, and others involved in the conferment of the position of Professor of Cybersecurity on the Minister of Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami.

Disclosing this at a press briefing in Lagos, The National President, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, said this during NEC’s meeting in Lagos, where the union declared a month-long warning strike because “the Federal Government had ignored them and refused to meet their demands.”

On professorship, the union said the minister should resign his position for breaching due process as he cannot be a serving minister and still occupies a professorial seat in a university.

READ ALSO: Communication Minister, Pantami Lands In Problem As ASUU Declares His Professorship Illegal

He said it was unfortunate that the education sector had been left to rot by the government.

“A lot of shenanigans are being perpetrated by people in government.

“One is the professorship conferred on Minister Isa Pantami.

“He is not a lecturer at FUTO and if he wants to be, let him resign his position and go and teach. All those involved would be sanctioned by our union including the Vice-Chancellor.

“Proliferation of universities is embarrassing. Every senator now has a bill in which they are demanding that universities be set up in their constituencies without adequate provision made for the funding.

“We are suggesting that the law mandating the National Universities Commission, NUC, to license new universities be amended to ensure that at least a new university would have a take-off grant of not less than N30 billion kept somewhere.

“Some state governments that are owing lecturers in their universities over six months salary arrears are also setting up new ones; that is a huge joke. Where will they get money to fund them?”