Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has described graduates of Nigerian public universities as brainless, saying they cannot communicate in English with the students of his private secondary school, the American University of Nigeria (AUN) Academy.

Abubakar, who spoke on Thursday evening in Yola during his birthday celebration organised by the management of AUN, said public universities graduates cannot fit into private industries due to their poor education and character.

“I was in the University of Zik in Akwa in Anambra State on Wednesday on the invitation of the university. There is no student in public universities that can speak English in an error-free manner like the head boy of my secondary, who just finished addressing us now.

“When the head boy of AUN Academy, Abdullahi Sani, started speaking, I was thinking it is one of the lecturers in AUN, but only for him to introduce himself as the head boy of AUN Academy,” he stated.

Atiku said his ambition to establish AUN was to ensure that Nigeria produced graduates of high quality, both in learning and character, at an affordable rate and avoid the stress of traveling to other countries in search of quality education.

He pointed out that only quality education could bring about technology development in any country in the world, not oil, gold or other mineral resources.

Atiku noted that a country that places emphasis on oil, instead of manpower development, is preparing to collapse, pointing out that quality education produces quality manpower that turns a country into a wealthy nation.

While addressing students of the Law Department, the former vice president restated that Nigeria would continue to move backward unless it is restructured to address the problems threatening its existing.

“When government set up the last constitutional conference, I sent my proposal to the conference and when the members received it, they all agree with the content and resolved to include it in their final report as part of their resolutions.