Daniel Agbolade, Ibadan
Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has raised the alarm over Nigerian youths increasingly loosing hope in the country, stating that they are revolting with drugs and crime.
The union urged President Muhammadu Buhari not to destroy future of the country by failing to invest in education.
The Chairman, ASUU University of Ibadan chapter, Mr. Deji Omole, in a statement issued yesterday, said all development plans being developed will fail unless the teeming youths of the country are taken along and onboard the plans, stating that it should be clear to Nigerians that more than ever before that the youths are revolting against the state with growing crimes.
According to him, the youth government fails to build through qualitative investment in education and nurtured with right values will sell all infrastructures being built at their expense.
On the strike embarked upon by the union since November 5, he said it was to make government implement previous agreements with the union but yet to have headway in the struggle, stating that if previous leaders were wicked as the present crop of leaders, the little education which Mr Buhari is using to rule Nigeria would have been denied him.
Omole lamented that it is shameful that no public university in Nigeria can boast of twenty-first century laboratory, noting that the Federal Government needs to be up and doing in terms of funding education to save the future of the country.
He said, "We are entering 2019 on a sad note that our future is neglected for pecuniary gains of gerontocrats in government. They want to build infrastructure without investing in human capital that will run and use it. That is failure from the start. Buhari should give Nigerian youths a future by showing concern for education.
"If only the little he learnt as student is what present Nigerian youths are exposed to, we would not be on strike. It is their generation that enjoyed the best quality of education and it is their generation that is destroying it. The youths are becoming alienated and are revolting with drugs and crime. Only a committed investment in public education will salvage the future of Nigeria."