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The Academic Staff Union of Universities has blamed former military dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida for the current problems bedeviling the nation’s education sector.

The union believed that the former military President presided over what it described as the dictatorship of the International Monetary Fund and Structural Adjustment Programme, whose policies were used to “kill public schools” in the late 1980s.

The union, which said its four-month-old strike would continue until government shows genuine commitment to the 2009 agreement, also called on government to reject “the reintroduction of SAP through the back door.”

The chairman of ASUU, Obafemi Awolowo University, Prof. Ade Akinola, in a statement on Monday, said the government should show patriotism and ensure that the university teachers returned to work.

He said, “Patriotism demands that the government should reject the dictate of the international financial conglomerate (IMF) and the reintroduction of SAP through the back door, under the superintendence of the Minister of Finance, Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

“Otherwise, why the rush to imbibe this strange doctrine that basic education is what Nigeria needs? The implication of this is that government should minimally spend or disengage from spending on tertiary education. Yet, we are in the age where knowledge is the difference. Wilful collapse of public institutions and subordination of national interest to private one must stop.

“ASUU insists that the strike continues until government shows genuine commitment to the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement as reinforced by the MoU of January 24, 2012 as it will not be part of this deliberate decimation of public university system.”

The OAU-ASUU branch chairman said government’s patriotism became necessary “to stop this cycle of institutional collapse.”