Nigeria’s University Teachers Decorate Education Minister With Insults

…for suggesting e-learning amidst Covid-19

The national union of University teachers in Nigeria has dropped jaws after it heaped scorn on that country’s Education Minister for directing that the Universities implement e-learning as a smart-around the Covid-19 pandemic.

In a leaflet responding to Hon. Adamu Adamu’s directive, the Academic Staff Union Of the Universities (ASUU) called out the Minister as a clueless bureaucrat who has fed his ignorance with misinformation and is acting as a willing pawn in the hands of corrupt people trying to use the Covid-19 pandemic as cover to loot the Federal coffers.

According to the academics, the Minister’s directive is simply aimed at creating the opportunity for “hounds” to dump useless computers on Universities and get payment for nothing.

“The Academic Staff Union of Universities wishes to call on Nigerians not to be deceived by the sudden love for online learning. The hounds have smelt an avenue to plunder our national resources once more. At such a time of serious emergency, When any right-thinking person should be reflecting, we can see once again that they want to make money from the suffering poor masses,” the ASUU statement said.

It added, “the Nigerian university system had been defrauded for many years by federal agencies who dump substandard computers in universities from time to time at the end of the year, to justify last-minute plundering of national resources in the name of supporting E-learning.”

Hon. Adamu Adamu had directed all Vice Chancellors, Provosts and Rectors of the various tertiary institutions, which have been closed down due to Covid-19 to resume schoolwork and use e-learning in place of physical contact hours.

Encapsulated in the directive was the announcement of the provision of computers to the various schools to be connected to the internet for the purpose, along with slides and MOOCs from some foreign schools. However, ASUU has called the directive a joke.

“It is important to break what E-learning involves down to its constituents bolts and nuts. This is necessary in order not to leave anyone in doubt that the Honorable Minister is either engaged in political gimmickry or that he is not fully informed of the situation in the sector over which he presides.”