The All Progressives Congress has said
the decision of the wife of President Goodluck Jonathan, Patience, to
receive a honorary doctorate degree from a South Korean university while
Nigerian universities have been shut for months was the height of
insensitivity.
This was contained in a statement signed by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Wednesday.
Continue after the break
The party said if Patience and her
advisers had been perceptive enough, they would have known that
embarking on such “a jamboree at this time is an assault on the
sensibilities of Nigerians in general, and the students who have been
marooned at home for almost four months in particular.”
The statement read, “In their eagerness
to gobble up one spurious award after another, they forgot that if the
Hansei University in South Korea had been shut by a strike because the
government there has repudiated an agreement it willingly signed with
the teachers, the institution would not have been able to give any
honorary degree to anyone.
“A government that is unwilling to spend the nation’s resources on the education of its youths has no qualms about wasting the same resources for a junket by the First Lady and her cheerleaders halfway around the world for what is nothing more than an ego-massaging award.”
APC said the reasons given for the award
of the honorary doctorate degree to the President’s wife were
particularly interesting “She’s a humanitarian who has dedicated her
life to working for the less privileged in Nigeria and Africa especially
for women and children.
“Her vision as the defender of the poor in Nigeria fits into Hansei University’s motto of a practising Christian.”
The party said there was no indication
that she and her husband were sparing any thought for the poor Nigerian
students whose dreams for a better future had been put on hold by the
long strike.
When contacted, the Director of
Information in the office of the First Lady, Mrs. Ayotunde Adesugba
said, “I am not in Abuja presently, I will let you know if there is a
response.”
No comments:
Post a Comment