The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has condemned poor funding of education.
It accused the government of proliferating tertiary institutions without funding the existing ones.
Addressing a news conference at the weekend at the end of a meeting in Benue State University (BSU), Makurdi, ASUU-NSUKKA Zone urged the Federal Government to increase funding of education by 20 per cent as prescribed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
Zonal Coordinator Dr. Igbana Ajir, who read a statement, said most of the infrastructural development in the universities were carried out with funds from Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).
He said: “It is ridiculous that the owners of these universities established them without looking back at how they survive. They have no funding agenda.”
Ajir said following neglect, the universities depended on Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to pay salary.
“The use of IGR to pay salary, instead of running overheads, is unacceptable to ASUU,” he added.
Ajir said as many as 17 states failed to provide matching grants for accessing the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) funds to support free, universal and compulsory basic education.
According to him, visitors in the universities are more interested in making political capital than having functional tertiary institutions.
On the plight of workers of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho, ASUU- NSUKKA zone implored the Federal Government and well- meaning individuals to intervene, for the sake of the students.
ASUU-NSUKKA Zone comprises Benue State University, Makurdi, Enugu State University of Technology Enugu, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Federal University, Lokoja and Federal University, Wukari.
Others are Kogi State University, Anyingba and University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
ASUU has urged the Federal Government to employ more lecturers, to prevent the overworked ones from untimely death.
It called for medical check-up by institutions to ascertain their workers’ health conditions.
In a statement at the weekend in Ibadan, the Chairman, University of Ibadan (UI) chapter of the union, Dr. Deji Omole, said public universities were short of not fewer than 40,000 lecturers.
He said due to poor working environment, job overload and non-approval of annual leave as and when due, the union had lost members to death across the country this year.
Omole said the Federal Government had refused to employ more lecturers to cope with the number of students, adding that the teachers worked under dehumanised conditions, as the government refused to pay the earned academic allowances from 2011 to date.
Reacting to the death of Professor of Exercise Physiology, Olasupo Abass, who died at the University of Ibadan, Omole said the deceased did not show any sign of ailment, but suspected he might have died a stress-related death.