The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Ibadan (UI) branch, has decried the move by the National Assembly to create additional 47 federal universities.

ASUU Chairman in UI, Prof. Ayo Akinwole, stated this in an interview with journalists in Ibadan on Tuesday January 9 while giving scholarship awards to some indigent students.

Akinwole expressed concern over the planned creation of additional federal universities when government was still struggling to fund the existing 52 universities it currently has.

“Thinking of adding 47 more universities, we begin to wonder what is the objective. The objective cannot be noble at all.

“If it is noble, you will see the seriousness in the way government is handling the existing ones,” Akinwole said.

“Perhaps the House of Representatives and the federal government should answer the question: ‘Why are they establishing 47 new universities when they have not taken care of the ones we have?” he queried.

The ASUU chairman described the removal of tertiary institutions from IPPIS as mere ‘noisemaking’, as there had been no letter to that effect to the universities.

“No letter, as we speak, has been communicated, either to the bursary or the heads of the institutions.

“All we have been seeing is so much motion without movement,” Akinwole said.

He also said that government had not paid them four months’ salaries as being claimed.