Academic Staff Union of Nigeria Universities (ASUU) has hinted of a fresh crisis that would surpass all previous ones in the nation’s universities.
It therefore called on the stakeholders and well meaning Nigerians to prevail on the Federal Government to pay its members across the country their withheld eight months salaries.
The Chairman of ASUU, University of Ilorin branch, Prof Moyosore Ajao, raised the alarm on Monday at a special congress of the local branch held at the university’s main auditorium, Ilorin.
Ajao’s speech was read by the secretary of the union, Dr AbdulGaniyu Olatunji.
The university lecturers had staged a solidarity rally within the university campus before retiring to the auditorium where they addressed journalists on: “Casualisation of Intellectual Workers In Nigeria: Prelude To Our Response”.
And in Ibadan, the Ibadan zone of the Union protested at the University of Ibadan (UI), alleging victimization and double standard on the part of the Federal Government against it with regard to the suspended eight-month-old strike and financial discrepancies meted out to its members.
In his speech delivered during the protest, Professor Ayoola Akinwole, Chairman of the UI-ASUU), said that the Federal Government and its agents forced the ASUU into the February 14, 2022 strike following its refusal to honour the Memorandum of Action (MOA) signed with the Union on December 2020.
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Alleging victimization, Akinwole noted that rather than addressing the demands of the Union, the FG “embarked on playing politics with the lives of Nigerians and moved quickly to stop the payment of ASUU-members’ salaries for seven months, leading to starvation and death of some members of the Union”.
