Stakeholders back ASUU strike ‘to secure our children’s future’

Some education stakeholders have expressed support for the current strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to seek improved funding for public universities and get new salaries for lecturers.

The stakeholders spoke at a programme organised by the Ibadan Zone of ASUU at the University of Ibadan (UI) Conference Centre to brief participants on why the union embarked on the current strike and asked for suggestions from the public.

The union’s Ibadan Zonal Coordinator, Professor Ade Adejumo, who was represented by a former ASUU National Treasurer, Professor Ademola Aremu, regretted that government was making the children of the masses to serve the children of those in power, especially those educated abroad, by deliberately under-funding public university education in Nigeria.

Present at the event were the Chairman of ASUU chapter of UI, Professor Ayo Akinwole, Professor Moyo Ajao (UNILORIN), Dr. Biodun Olaniran (LAUTECH), Dr. Femi Abanikanda (UNIOSUN), Dr. Adesola Dauda (KWASU) and Dr. Dele Ashiru (UNILAG).

Taking the stakeholders through ASUU strikes, Aremu insisted that the union was fighting for the interest of children of the masses and the nation’s future.

The academic stressed that an uneducated child will become terror to the country.

He said the Federal Government had not been faithful towards fulfilling the agreements it reached with the union but preferred to allocate more funds for the executive and the legislative arms of government.

The former union leader said ASUU’s strike focused on funding for the revitalisation of public universities, as contained in the FGN-ASUU Memorandum of Understanding of 2012 & 2013 and the Memorandum of Action of 2017 and 2019; payment of arrears and mainstreaming of Earned academic allowances; renegotiation of 2009 agreement, constitution of visitation panels to universities, and remittance of withheld third-party deductions from ASUU members.

UI Students’ Union Government (SUG) President Segun Akeju supported the union’s stand on the need for the revitalisation of universities.

The student leader urged the union to involve his colleagues in their agitation.

He noted that ASUU strikes would always affect the students and pleaded that the union should henceforth ensure that its strikes achieve the reasons it was embarked upon.

Chairman of Alliance on Surviving COVID-19 and Beyond (ASCAB), Bayo Titilola Sodo, lauded the stakeholders’ engagement of ASUU.

The activist said ASCAB was on the same page with the union on the need for massive funding of the Education sector.

He regretted what he called the decay in the sector, especially in infrastructure and conditions of service of all categories of workers, due to World Bank’s dictates.

Sodo said there was a deliberate neglect of the education sector and other critical social services by successive governments, especially since the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) between 1984 and 1986.

The Chaplin of Chapel of the Resurrection at UI, Dr. Olufikayo Oyelade and the university’s Chief Imam, Prof. Abdulrahman Oloyede, urged ASUU to always engage the public on the need to support its struggle.

They said the stakeholders’ meeting had made them more informed about the reasons for the strike than before.