WE HAVEN’T REACHED STAGE OF SUSPENDING STRIKE – ASUU ASUU insists on strike, says Five universities under the aegis of Academic Staff Union of Universities, Ibadan Zone have insisted that the ongoing strike embarked on by the union will not be called off unless the Federal Government meets their demands. The universities are University of Ibadan; University of Lagos; University of Agriculture, Abeokuta; Olabisi Onabanjo University and the Lagos State University. The Union in a press briefing at LASU on Wednesday, faulted some universities who conducted Post-Universal Tetiary Matriculation Examinations despite the ongoing strike. Some of the universities who have written their Post-UTME are Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife; University of Ilorin; University of Lagos; Lagos State University; University of Nigeria, Nssuka; among others. Zonal Coordinator, Ibadan Zone of ASUU, Dr. Adesola Nassir, explained that the union embarked on the strike to protest the decline in Universities in terms of teaching, research, facilities including students’ accommodation. Nassir, who spoke on behalf of the five universities, emphasized that the union was not ready for any renegotiation with the Federal Government, adding that renegotiation would affect the objectives of the strike. He said, “Our union had thought government would save itself the embarrassment of being exposed as most insensitive to the plight of Nigerians. It appears the government is pushing for another round of renegotiation of the Agreement which ought to have been implemented years ago. “The decision on the amount of funds needed to address both funding and payment of earned allowances was arrived at after meticulous data gathering across universities. The fund represents the minimum needed to begin to turn around our universities. Any attempt to review these downward implies half measure which would not achieve the desired turnaround of our institutions.” While urging the Federal Government to release intervention fund for the education sector, Nassir warned the National University Commission to desist from jeopardizing the efforts of the union. He said, “This year alone, government has been selling crude at close to 150 percent of budget price and has collected about N500 billion in 2013 in excess of projected revenue from tax alone. We are convinced that if our government cut their profligacy in many areas, they would have more than needed to adequately fund the education sector. “If government could deploy N3 trillion to rescue banks and several hundreds of billions of naira to bail out the textile and aviation sector, it should certainly not develop cold feet when it comes to our public universities. NUC has been putting pressure on University Vice Chancellors to undermine our struggle in the name of certain deadlines in university calendar especially on admission of fresh students.” National Treasurer of ASUU, Mr. Ademola Aremu, regretted that some have conducted post-UTME screening even when they knew the exercise was for matriculation and hence academic.” ………. As far as we are concerned, the students that wrote post-UTME are not fit to receive lectures from us since we are not the one that invigilated them. Some schools went as far as employing consultants to invigilate the exercise with worsen the integrity of the whole thing. What is the essence of post-UTME? Is it not to ensure inputs of the academic staff of the senate? Non academic staff used to investigate the exercise is an abnormality. It will create crisis in those universities. They result of those post-UTME may even be jettisoned or may be rarely considered by the senate. there is no indication that the strike will be called off for “infinity”. MAY GOD HELP US.
Posted on: Thu, 01 Aug 2013 12:33:28 +0000
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