President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, yesterday said the union is awaiting President Muhammadu Buhari’s and House of Representatives Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila’s intervention to resolve the issues affecting the university system in the country.
Osodeke spoke yesterday while featuring on Channels Television evening programmed, “Politics Today”.
The ASUU president justified the union’s decision to protest the government’s policy on “no work, no pay” rule.
When ASUU called off its eight-month industrial action last month, the Federal Government had adopted a prorated approach to pay the lecturers for the month of October.
Students of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) and some other civil society groups trooped out en masse in Lagos to join ASUU to protest the Federal Government’s implementation of ‘No-work, no-pay policy’ for public university lecturers in the country.
Commenting on the issue, Osodeke said it was wrong for the government to subject university lecturers to casualisation, adding that such thinking was a disservice to the country’s public educational sector.
“We are surprised that for the first time in the history of the university, we are hearing prorated payment. It is against the rules of service conditions in the university. It is very sad that this is happening.”
Also, ASUU chairman at the University of Jos (UNIJOS), Associate Prof. Lazarus Maigoro, has said the union is not responsible for the current decay in public universities in the country.
Maigoro said this during a peaceful protest the union organised yesterday in Jos, the Plateau State capital.
He said: “It is no longer news that the Nigerian university system is currently facing its most existential threats.
“The systematic neglect, chronic underfunding and lack of attention given to public universities and, by extension, the educational system, has led to its inability to compete globally.”
In Nasarawa State, the union’s branch at the state university in Keffi has urged Governor Abdullahi Sule to fulfill the commitments he made with the union.
The union’s chairman, Dr. Samuel Alu, stated this at a media briefing yesterday in Keffi Local Government Area.
He said ASUU had, on July 25, held a media briefing where it presented to the public the state of affairs of the university.
Alu recalled that the action prompted the governor to make certain public commitments that were conveyed to the union in writing.
In Gombe State, the union’s branches at the state university and the Federal University Kashere (FUK) yesterday faulted what they called the casualisation of Nigerian universities by the Federal Government.
In two separate protests on the campuses of both institutions, the placard-carrying lecturers urged the Federal Government to allow reason to prevail in resolving the lingering crisis.
Also, the ASUU branch at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) has mobilised stakeholders and students to demand the reversal of government’s action on the half-salary received by the lecturers for October.
The aggrieved lecturers, who spoke at a peaceful rally which took off at the Julius Berger hall of the university, to the school main gate, were accompanied by students carrying a big banner and placards with inscriptions such as: ‘Ngige, be mindful of history’; ‘ASUU would outlive you’.
Addressing a rally, the ASUU branch chairman, Dr. Dele Ashiru, said the rally/congress was aimed at drawing government’s attention to lecturers’ grievance over the half-salaries they received.