Nigeria’s former Minister of Education, Dr Oby Ezekwesili has said that the demands being made by striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) are unrealistic.

Speaking to journalists in Ibadan, Ezekwesili said that the lasting solution to the country’s crisis-ridden education sector can only be found from strong analysis of the issues raised by ASUU as well as evidence-based politics.

“There are some fundamental reforms that the sector needs in order to ensure that it is not about the size of the funding but about the productivity of the funding. You cannot simply express a desire, it must be founded on reality and that means you must know what can be achieved within a given period.

“If you remember, the ASUU negotiation started in 2007 when I was the Minister of Education and we constituted a government negotiation team, led by the late Gamaliel Onosode’” she said.

She added that the government of that time aimed to tackle the problem by negotiating with ASUU based on evidences derived from existing models in countries similar to Nigeria as well as what would be done by both private and public sectors about the funding of universities.

She further revealed that because of the short period of her tenure, she could not ascertain the basis for the final agreement the government reached with ASUU and therefore urged both parties to return to the negotiating table with analytical and evidence-based minds to find a lasting solution to the lingering dispute.