ASUU says resolute to get what public universities need from FG

The Chairman, ASUU University of Ibadan Chapter, Prof Ayo Akinwole, recalled in Ibadan during an encounter with journalists.

He said “the union also stated that all chapters of ASUU that started the over six-month-old strike have remained intact and resolute to get what public universities need to survive and compete globally from the Federal Government of Nigeria.”

Akinwole stated that academic staff in Nigerian public universities have been using their ‘blood’ to run public universities and sustain them. He added that the union would not sacrifice her members’ welfare and would resist any effort to turn intellectuals into ‘slaves of irresponsible leadership.’

He explained that the effort made by the Nigerian Interreligious Council in 2021 to prevent the strike yielded no results before the ASUU was forced to declare the strike on February 14.

“We waited for 14 months from December 2020 to February 2022 before declaring this strike. I am saying 14 months’ notice, 14 months of engagements and the Nigeria Inter-religious Council intervened in 2021 when we would have declared the strike. We gave them one month with no results. Heroes are gone before they are appreciated but our union will not die. We will not die. We are going to be alive to see this struggle through, ” he stated.

Akinwole said the N1.1trillion for the revitalisation of universities was not for lecturers in public universities.

The amount, he stated, was arrived at by the Federal Government through her NEEDS Assessment report on the level of decay in Nigerian public universities.

Akinwole said “if ASUU does not go on this struggle, there will be no university for new people to attend. In the last twenty-five years, the federal government will not spend money on their university unless ASUU goes on strike. Does that show they are responsible? I am also a parent and my children are home with me. Most lecturers have to spend their money on their students’ projects for some students to graduate. I could give you the numbers of some of my students who can tell you how much I have had to support their projects.

“Lecturers retain Nigerian public universities with their blood. But it is right for Nigerians to say they should die on the job. I am saying they are owing us over eight years of verified earned academic allowances. Is it ASUU only that is on strike? Some sectors (research institutes) of the nation have been on strike for 13 months and the government has been paying their salaries. Is it an offence to become a lecturer in Nigerian universities? What led to the strike? It is non-responsiveness of government that led to the strike.”

Akinwole stated that the federal government has not been talking about the over eight years of earned academic allowances owed lecturers in public universities. He noted that the government purportedly lied to the union severally and that the present administration, instead of paying N220 billion meant for the 2014 revitalisation fund only paid N50 billion to over 50 universities in the last seven years. The government; he said, has to pay the balance of N170 billion to university management.

The ASUU chairman further stated that UTAS has proved to be better than IPPIS, yet the government that accepted that IPPIS is a fraud is insisting on going ahead with the fraud and jettisoning homegrown solutions from Nigerian intellectuals, who “developed it with the check off-dues of ASUU members, donations and free services and given free of charge to the government but the government still prefers the fraudulent IPPIS imposed on them by those given them loans from the Breton woods institutions.”