The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has told the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajuiba, to resign his appointment as minister “and take to farming as a worthy national service.”

The union stated this on Tuesday, October 6, in response to a statement credited to the minister telling the striking ASUU members to go to farm if they would not want agree with the government’s terms.

The union said Nwajiuba’s statement reflected his shallow understanding of the academic profession and the low premium the government placed on education.

ASUU Chairman, University of Ibadan, Prof. Ayo Akinwole, said this, adding that the minister had “displayed his naivety on educational matters”.

He said, “If the Minister of State for Education is interested in farming, he should resign his appointment and stop displaying his cluelessness of the problems in the education sector.

“We are on a just fight to ensure that those in public offices become responsive and responsible to the masses they swore to serve.

“They must fund public education. We have been on the same salary since 2009. That is no longer sustainable. The universities are being run with personal sweats of lecturers while politicians siphon monies for personal aggrandizement.

According to Akinwole, the scarcity of farmers is a reflection of the failure of the government.

He said lecturers decided to continue to fight parasites like Nwajiuba, presiding over a ministry where no Nigerian university had been ranked among the first 100 in the world.

He said if the President Muhammadu Buhari government was not paying lip service to education, he would not have consistently reduced budgetary allocation and funding to the sector since assumption of office.

He said public university lecturers were owed earned academic allowances from 2013 to date and challenged the minister to declare if he had been owed allowances since he assumed office.

He said available statistics showed salaries of university lecturers were below amount being paid to academics in polytechnics and colleges of education.

The ASUU chairman also said, “We cannot accept IPPIS that is against the laws of the land and which fails to recognise the uniqueness of the academic profession and culture. We have brought an alternative using our members’ money. People like this Minister of State mirror the disdain of the ruling class for the workers and the people of the country.”