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The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has denounced the federal government’s decision to close universities in advance of the general elections in 2023.
Mallam Adamu Adamu, the minister of education, had given the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities the order to urge their respective institutions to suspend academic activity for a period of three weeks in order to allow students to engage in the electioneering process.
In response to the directions, ASUU President Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke claimed that the NUC lacked the authority to give such a directive because university closure and reopening decisions were made by the senate of each institution in an interview on Thursday, February 9. He stated that due to elections, universities had never been closed.
The chairman of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities (CVCNU), Prof. Yakubu Ochefu, disagreed with Osodeke and stated that the directives were appropriate given that Nigeria always closes its universities for elections in order to allow voters who registered outside of the institution to exercise their right to vote and to use university campuses as polling places.
The National Board for Technical Education has not yet issued a directive about the upcoming elections, according to Mr. Anderson Ezeibe, National President of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics. But he insisted that the Senates of the institutions had the authority to decide whether to close them or open them.
Usman Barambu, the president of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), praised the NUC’s instruction.
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