The All Progressives Congress (APC) has described as
the height of insensitivity the decision by First Lady
Patience Jonathan to receive an Honorary Doctorate
award in far away South Korea, even as Nigeria’s
public universities have remained shut for many
months under the watch of her husband.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Wednesday by its
Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, the party said if the First Lady 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.
”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 youth 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,” it said.
APC said the reasons given for the award of the
Honorary Doctorate to the First Lady was 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.”
”What the university forgot to add is that while the
First Lady may have dedicated her life working for
the less privileged in Nigeria, there is no indication
that she and her husband are sparing any thought
for the poor Nigerian students whose dreams for a
better future have been put on hold by the long
strike that has paralyzed academic activities in
public universities,” the party said.
It said that since charity begins at home, the First
Lady, as a mother and a ‘humanitarian’, would have
done well to rally women to put pressure on the
government led by her husband to quickly reach an
agreement that will end the long-drawn ASUU strike.
”It is instructive that the First Lady would rather
corral some hapless women to the Eagle Square in
Abuja to illegally campaign for her husband, in
furtherance of her ‘humanitarian’ gesture, instead of
leading a campaign of concerned mothers and
‘humanitarians’ to protest the deadlock in ending the
strike in our public universities,” APC said
