The National Association of Nigerian Students, South-West Zone D, has knocked a Nigerian Senator, Solomon Adeola, for asking the Nigerian government to stop funding government-owned universities.
Adeola, who is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, had recently urged the government to have a rethink on funding government-owned tertiary institutions, their salaries as well as recurrent expenditure.
In a statement made available to our correspondent, the Coordinator of the NANS Zone D, Adegboye Olatunji, knocked the senator, describing his statement as ridiculous.
The student body also vowed a serious showdown over the ongoing strike action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
Speaking further in the statement, the students also tagged Adeola of being ignorant of the processes and activities going on in the university system.
“The Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Solomon Olamilekan, during an interactive session with revenue generating agencies on 2023-2025 MTEF/FSP, lamented that some universities generate N17 billion annually and expend all, with no justification on how the funds were expended,” Olatunji said in a statement on Monday.
“We watched with utter dismay the video of the Senate Committee on Finance, Solomon Olamilekan, where he declared that the Federal Government should stop funding education. We find the statement very ridiculous and irresponsible of a lawmaker.
“We were expecting Senator Solomon to know better. But, alas, we were proven wrong by his sheer display of ignorance. We could have categorised it as willful ignorance but it is obvious that the Senator does not understand what the business of governance is.
“We may conclude that Senator Solomon and other members of the Committee, like many other government officials out there, are lacking the knowledge of what Section 18 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) says on the enforcement of public education right in Nigeria.
