ASUU members guilty of corrupt acts in Nigerian universities - Buhari

President Muhammad Buhari on Tuesday, October 4 accused the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) of complicity in the menace of corruption in Nigeria's tertiary education sector.

President Buhari spoke in an address during the fourth National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in the Public Sector.

The event was jointly organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, held at the Banquet hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

“Incessant strikes, especially by unions in the tertiary education, often imply that government is grossly underfunding education, but I must say that corruption in the education system from basic level to the tertiary level has been undermining our investment in the sector and those who go on prolonged strikes on flimsy reasons are no less complicit.”

The president also listed other activities by the lecturers including the deployment of disguised terminologies to perpetuate corruption in the ivory towers, a development he said, impinges on the fight against the menace in the education sector.

He said: “Government and stakeholders in the educational sector are concerned about the manifestation of various forms of corruption in the education sector. I am aware that students in our universities, for example, use different terminologies to describe different forms of corruption they experience on our campuses.

“There is sorting or cash for marks/grades, sex for marks, sex for grade alterations, examination malpractice, and so on.

“Sexual harassment has assumed an alarming proportion. Other forms of corruption include pay-roll padding or ghost workers, lecturers taking up full-time appointments in more than one academic institution, including private institutions, lecturers writing seminar papers, projects and dissertations for students for a fee, and admission racketeering, to mention only the most glaring corrupt practices.”

He added: “Corruption in the expenditure of internally generated revenue of tertiary institutions is a matter that has strangely not received the attention of stakeholders in tertiary education, including unions.”