ASUU to Nigerians: Join us to rescue dying university system

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, Benin Zone, on Monday, urged Nigerians to join the body in rescuing the country’s dying university system.

The Benin Zonal Coordinator, Prof Fred Esumeh, during a press briefing at the ASUU Secretariat, University of Benin, Edo State, called on Nigerians to rise up and join the union in salvaging what remains of the country’s university system.

This, he said, would augment the body’s effort in repositioning the universities to a globally competitive level that would be able to produce the manpower required to jump-start the re-emergence of a country driven by technology.

He said: “We call on all well-meaning Nigerians, students, workers, civil society organisations to wake up and join ASUU to rescue the dying university system.

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“It will help reposition the universities to be globally competitive and able to produce the manpower required to jump-start the re-emergence of the country.

“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 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 the 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 57 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. Punch