The President of the Association of Staff Union of Universities, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi has on Monday evening said that institutions that pulled out of the ongoing strike and opened their doors to students will regret their action in future.
Ogunyemi made this known while
speaking to The Punch correspondent, who asked on his view on the
perceived disunity in the union’s ranks.
The Punch reports that
since the commencement of the industrial action no fewer than 6
institutions who are members of the union had pulled out of the
industrial action.
The President hinted that members that pulled
out of the campaign were pressured to abandon the fight by their
vice-chancellors, or governing councils.
Ogunyemi said,
“Those
universities perceived as pulling out are certainly not against what we
are asking for. Our members are in institutions like the Obafemi
Awolowo University, which decided to work against us and deliberately
sabotaged our efforts to reposition the universities.“Those who
said they do not agree with us are not against the funds for
revitalisation that we are demanding. They are not against academic
allowances or the payments of shortfalls that we ask for. They are not
against fixing our universities.“A lot of factors have to be
considered when we talk about some universities pulling out. It is not
that they actually mean to do so. Some intervening forces or variables
may be at work. There are cases where vice-chancellors are overzealous,
although they will be the greatest beneficiaries of what we are asking
for. Some institutions were compelled by their governing councils to
resume academic activities. In other situations, some governors or
vice-chancellors deliberately created problems for us.“Those
vice-chancellors usually end up regretting their activities, but that
does not stop us from resorting to our in-house procedure in dealing
with chapters that pull out of national strikes. They will all be
subjected to our in-house procedures.”He however assured that 90
percent of its members were still in support of the strike action,
noting that they were not bothered by the action of some of its chapters
to abandon the industrial action.He added that the conscience
of these institutions will continue to speak against them, knowing fully
well that when the goodies of the strike action begins to trickle in
all the institutions in questions will be partakers of the benefits.“Over
90 per cent of our members are still together and that is good enough
for us because what we are doing now is a movement and those who fail to
participate will regret their actions. They know that when the Federal
Government releases funds for revitalisation, all public universities
will be covered. The conscience of those who refused to participate in
the strike will continue to prick them. Those who sabotaged us will have
a moral burden and that is what we have always told them.“If
you go to state universities, many of the new projects you will see are
technically being funded with capital funds from grants coming from
NEEDs assessment and TETFund. If such universities are being forced to
pull out, you will know that it is always against the wish of our
members. We are not bothered.”
Share your thoughts