Addressing journalists at the University of Lagos (UNILAG)
secretariat on association, the Lagos Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Prof. Adelaja
Odukoya, said, the issue relating to the Governing Councils is about tenure of
the former councils that had not lapsed before they were removed from office.
He since the former Council members have not breached the
law setting them up, their sack amount to an illegality.
“The issue is about the tenure of the councils. They had a
tenure that they were not allowed to complete. That is illegal. The only
condition that they could have been disbanded was if they committed any offence
or were involved in any illegality. That was not the case. They were just swept
away like that. We want them to be returned.
“If we allow this illegal act by the government to go
unchallenged, somebody could just wake up from the wrong side of the bed one
day and say he is even disbanding the universities. The President has a tenure
of office, how would he feel if he is asked to go home when his tenure has not
lapsed.
“The fact that some unions and people are thumbing up the
composition of the councils does not mean they spoke to us as a union. The
situation has led to some vice chancellors behaving like emperors on campuses.
We have issues in some universities and we are tackling those things,” he said.
On the Mushrooming of Universities across the country, ASUU
decried the trend and vowed to explore all available legal options to oppose
the widespread attempts by politicians to continue the proliferation of crisis
centres for youths with limited resources under the guise of universities.
“NUC Act be fully reviewed as agreed in 2020 to strengthen
it and make it more capable of sifting off proposals for the unnecessary and
irrational establishment of universities, as outlined in the ASUU-FGN
Memorandum of Action (MoA). ASUU and NUC joint committees presented a draft
bill to the National Assembly on this topic during the immediate past
legislative session.
“The bill’s altruistic trajectory of the system, we assume,
was not compatible with the manner in which the country’s political elite have
contemptuously turn Universities into constituency projects. There is the need
to revisit this bill, in the interest of the country.
ASUU urged the government to discourage politicians
advocating for further mushrooming of universities.
On the non-release of the withheld salaries of ASUU members,
Odukoya said the government would not succeed in what it termed efforts to
foist a master-servant relationship on lecturers.
“We are not slaves and we are not afraid to go on strike,
the court case instituted against us by the former administration has been
concluded. There is nothing stopping us from going on strike if the need
arises.
The union decried what it described as the deliberate crisis
creation in some Nigerian Universities in Kogi State University (KSU),
Anyingba, Ebonyi State University (EBSU), Abakalıkı, Lagos State University
(LASU), Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma, Federal University of Technology
Owerri (FUTO), Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU), Igbariam, and
other universities where its members have been unjustly sacked and have had
their salaries withheld for no reason.
It vowed to always support its members wherever and whenever
they are subjected to unfair treatment.
The union also revisited the renegotiation of FGN/ASUU 2009 Agreement, non-release of withheld salaries and arrears of earned academic allowances and the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System.
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