The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) warned Nigerians on Monday that if the Federal Government continued to withhold their salaries, a new crisis in the country’s universities would erupt.
It encouraged interested parties and well-meaning Nigerians to put pressure on the Federal Government to pay the withheld eight-month salary of its members across the country.
Prof. Moyosore Ajao, Chairman of the University of Ilorin, ASUU, raised the alert at a special congress of the local chapter convened on Monday at the university’s main auditorium.
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Dr AbdulGaniyu Olatunji, the union’s Secretary, read Ajao’s remarks.
The university lecturers held a solidarity rally on campus before returning to the auditorium, where they spoke to reporters about the ‘Casualisation of Intellectual Workers in Nigeria: Prelude to Our Response.’
Ajao said, “Members of the public are hereby sensitised and put on notice again that a fresh crisis, which will surpass all previous ones, is looming again in Nigerian universities as our members cannot and will not continue to do free work that will not be remunerated. We hope that with this notice, all relevant stakeholders, who have the ear of the government, will act fast before the fragile peace restored on our campuses nationwide collapses.
“Our union and its members should not be held responsible for the consequences that its actions, in response to the crude wickedness of the Nigerian state, would have on all stakeholders.”
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Members of the union at the University of Ibadan in Oyo State also protested what they called the Federal Government’s and its agents’ mistreatment of lecturers.
Ayoola Akinwole, Chairman of ASUU-UI, voiced dismay to journalists on Monday during a demonstration that the agreement between the union and the Federal Government had not been honored since December 23, 2020.
Akinwole maintained that, rather than acting to resolve the issues, the government chose to play politics with Nigerians’ lives by suspending ASUU members’ salaries for seven months, causing starvation and the death of some union members.
“The only explanation for this is that the government is hell-bent on destroying ASUU in order to have the freedom to destroy public universities.
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“As a union of intellectuals, it is our historical responsibility to protect public universities from collapse and fight for the interest of our members as well as the interests of the Nigerian students. All these considerations necessitate today’s protest,” he added.
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