By Adeyemi Elijah ,Benin
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Benin Zone on Monday pleaded with Nigerians generally to join ASUU in rescuing the dying university system.
Speaking, the Zonal Coordinator, ASUU-Benin Zone, Prof Fred Esumeh
in a press briefing at the ASUU Secretariat, University of Benin, Edo State, said ASUU is calling on all-well meaning Nigerians to wake-up and join the union in salvaging University system of the country by repositioning the universities to be globally competitive and able to produce the manpower required to jump-start the re-emergence of a technological and economic power.
“We call on all well-meaning Nigerians, students, workers,Civil Society organisations to wake-up and join ASUU to salvage what remains of the country by repositioning the universities to be globally competitive and able to produce the manpower
required to jump-start the re-emergence as a globally technological and economic power.”
“On the 14th of February 2022, ASUU, after more than a calendar year of
exploring all available and legitimate means in its effort to compel the Federal Government of Nigeria to honour the terms of the Memorandum of Action it signed with the Union on
December 2020, was left with no option, other than to declare a four-week roll-over strike .But at expiration of the four weeks when the government
created the impression that it required more time to address the issues at stake, ASUU rolled over
the strike for another eight weeks to provide the Federal Government with more than sufficient
time to comprehensively sort out the patriotic demand by the Union.
“The representatives of government continue to toy with the future of our children,
students and nation, such that fifty-seven days after they were sent packing from
the institutions, the resolution of the principal outstanding issues of the deployment of the University
Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) and the signing and implementation and the 2009 FGN-ASUU agreement remains at the level of mere proposals, fruitless and empty assurances. Yet these are issues that could have been adequately resolved in weeks by any well-meaning and serious-minded government.” He said.
