Some lecturers not qualified — ASUU president

The president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Biodun Ogunyemi, has decried the recruitment system in the universities, saying those not qualified to teach had found their way into the system.

Ogunyemi, who spoke in Abuja yesterday on the News Agency of Nigeria Forum, said: “Some lecturers have no business in the classrooms, but they found their way in due to political interference.

“You find that some lecturers probably have no business being in the universities but you know politics has done so much damage to us that sometimes merit is sacrificed on the altar of mediocrity and political connections.

“We hope that we shall restore the credibility of the system as we’ve been trying to argue over the years. A key step to achieving that is for government to create the enabling environment for us to go back to the renegotiation table.

“We need to talk more so that we can come up with a new agreement package that will help us in addressing our universities shortcomings in no time,’’ he said.

He noted that such recruitment had done a lot of damage to the university system as not all people in the class are able to teach.

“Teaching is all about passion and not about preference of any sort. It is something natural.”

On why students do not have access to current publication by lecturers, Ogunyemi said facilities for conducting cutting edge research were in a shambles.

He, however, said that lecturers were doing their best. (NAN)