The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Wednesday said it is ready to suspend the ongoing indefinite strike if government can release the withheld salaries of its members and remit check off dues to the rightful owners.
ASUU made this known through the union’s Ibadan Zonal coordinator, Professor Ade Adejumo, at a press conference titled: “The road may be rough but the though get going,” addressed on his behalf by Professor Ayo Ajao at the University of Ibadan.
The union said with the situation on ground, it was glaring that the government has declared war on ASUU members using the weapon used during war against adversaries: hunger.
“At this stage of the struggle, Nigerians are urged to compel government to release the withheld salaries of our members, remit the check-off dues of the union to the rightful owner, pay us the same way it had paid our arbitrarily handpicked members without subjecting them to IPPIS registration and speed up the process of testing the integrity of UTAS so that it may be deployed for payment beginning from January 2021.
We are ready to suspend the strike as our children too are tired of staying at home, but we cannot work on empty stomachs while politicians’ homes and warehouses are filled with palliative materials that they don’t even need,” it said.
ASUU stated further that: “Let the politicians note that the interest of Nigeria and the future generations is more paramount to ASUU than the immediate gains of its members.
That is why ASUU has been consistent in challenging the rots in the system through sustained engagements with powers that be since the time of the military.
“The gains of ASUU struggles are in the changes that TETFund has been able to bring to the tertiary education sector in the country. ASUU will not relent in pushing for a better university system in the country.
“The road may be tough, the burden is huge, but ASUU remain committed in saving our public universities and not making them suffer the lot of our public schools.
This is our stand and we stand firm”.
“ASUU is actually tired of having a circus show of talks but in the interest of the students and the Nigerians at large, we still continue to hold meetings upon meetings while government continues to shift the goal post and dribble the union as it wishes”.
On the war declared on ASUU over the strike, the union accused the government of intentionally using hunger as a weapon in its war against ASUU by stopping their salaries as it took a high level of intervention before our members were paid amputated salaries for three months.
ASUU was forced to go on strike in March this year when the COVID-19 lockdown began in order to give government enough room to address lingering issues during the period.
“It was a patriotic act aimed at resolving the issues so that our students would be in school any time the lockdown was lifted.
Rather than for government to utilise the opportunity of the lockdown to address our grievances, it was during that lockdown that our salaries were stopped so that our members could die of hunger in their various homes.
It took a high level of intervention before our members were paid amputated salaries for three months after which government resorted to blackmail by whipping sentiments against us while taking our members as enemies deserving of starvation.”
