*vows to resist attempts to turn intellectuals into slaves
By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)
Addressing a press conference in Ibadan after the University of Ibadan chapter of ASUU congress, its Chairman, Professor Ayo Akinwole accused the Federal Government of also refusing to mainstream earned academic allowances in the 2022 budget as promised.
Professor Akinwole pointed out that in as much as ASUU is not hell bent on going on indefinite strike if the Federal Government is ready to do the needful, it will not take lightly and will resist the grand plan of the Muhammadu Buhari led federal government to refuse sign the renegotiated agreements.
According to the ASUU Chairman, the looming indefinite strike in the Nigeria Universities is “avoidable if the Federal Government is true to its words on the implementation of the MoU signed with ASUU on the 2009 agreement”.
Stressing that ASUU has been pushed to the wall and will now fight back, Professor Akinwole said the federal government has employed all formal and informal tactics to delay the renegotiation of 2009 agreements for four years and the new agreements was supposed to have been effective if the government had signed it in 2021.
” Rather than signing the agreement which took four years to be reached. The federal government now said the agreement will now be tabled before another tripartite committee to consider it. We know this is a strategy of the President Buhari led administration to continue to impoverish the intellectual community.”
The University of Ibadan ASUU Chairman disclosed that the Union has explored all possible avenues to make government do the needful and allowed many stakeholders who approached the Union to mediate to prevent another strike but “they all reported back to us that they were not able to convince government and that government was adamant”
Lamented that while Nigerian politicians are among the highest paid in the world, the ASUU Chairman said Nigerian lecturers are among the poorly paid in the world with professors earning less than $1,000 dollars in a month.
Speaking on UTAS, Professor Akinwole said “the NITDA examination rated the UTAS over 87percent and asked us to adjust the areas noted and resubmit for re-evaluation and start a new long process and we asked them what process did the fraudulent IPPIS go through by the NITDA before it was forced down with the monumental fraud discovered in it?
The IPPIS which is foreign imposed was bot subjected to NITDA evaluation but a homegrown solution that was developed will be perpetually delayed so that the welfare of our members will be sacrificed to ensure that IPPIS continue to enrich their paymasters. We would not allow this. It is our destiny and we will fight for our own welfare.”
