Incessant Strikes By Varsity Unions Detrimental To Nigeria’s Image, Says VC

• NUC Accredits 34 Al-Hikmah Varsity’s Programmes

Incessant strikes by the Academic Staff Unions of Universities (ASUU), Non- Academic Staff Union (NASU) and Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) are damaging the image of Nigeria in the comity of nations, the Vice Chancellor of Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin, Prof Noah Yusuf, has said.

He said the strikes did not show the seriousness of the country towards education.

The professor of sociology said the demands of the unions paled into insignificance in comparison to trillions of Naira the current administration claimed it had spent on schools’ feeding programme.

The academic spoke in Ilorin, Kwara State, while announcing the accreditation of 34 of the varsity’s programmes by the National Universities Commission (NUC).

“Government claims to be spending trillions of Naira on its schools feeding programme. Now, one asks what is the big deal about the requests of ASUU and NASU? We are talking about the future of our country. More so, one of the fundamental causes of the current security challenges in the country is illiteracy.

“Someone who is well trained will not allow himself to be recruited by either bandits or Boko Haram insurgents.”

Yusuf said NUC recently accredited 11 of the varsity’s programmes.

He said: “The result of the accreditation was released to the university on April 19. The university scored 100 per cent in the exercise by recording full accreditation status in all academic programmes.

“The newly accredited programmes are spread across the faculties of humanities and social sciences, natural and applied sciences to education.”