The Academic Staff Union of Universities has accused Femi Gbajabiamila, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, of misleading the union when he asked the union to end its eight-month strike in October with a written assurance that the government would immediately offset in full the arrears of salaries members were owed.
In an exclusive interview with Tribune Online on Tuesday, the union’s president, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, was asked to comment on the speaker’s intervention and then vice versa on the current state of their difficulties with the Federal Government.
He claimed that ASUU had a soft spot for the speaker and that this was the reason the union sought out the speaker for a meeting as a welcome intervention to break the impasse between it and the federal government.
He said that Gbajabiamila even gave the leadership of ASUU a document with his signature demonstrating the government’s determination in making good on its debt to the union’s members by paying their eight-month salary in full as well as addressing other issues that needed urgent attention.
According to him, among other things, the oddities in the contentious Universities Transparency and Accountability Solution and the house committee’s role in budget allocation are some of the reasons for these worries.
ASUU decided to call off the strike based on the Speaker’s intervention at the time in the hopes that his words would be followed by deeds.
Further, he added that despite knowing that everything was a lie, ASUU members and the rest of the world at the time both praised him for his involvement.
Osodeke underlined that the general perception among ASUU members of Gbajabiamila as of right now is that he deceived them into returning to work so that they could instantly sort out the situation.
He said; “But here we are till today, nothing has been done over the promise and that is why the Speaker did not say anything tangible since then at least on the issues let alone ensure that his promises are carried out.”
The Speaker, according to the union’s president, would have to step forward since he still has the chance to refute ASUU’s assertions by merely figuring out how to carry out the union’s promises.
Osodeke, who claimed that ASUU members only remained in the classrooms despite the government’s unfavorable treatment as a sacrifice for the benefit of students, parents, and the nation as a whole, also criticized the judiciary for hastily passing judgment on their dispute with the Federal Government by ordering ASUU members to return to work and then adjourning the case until January 26.
He asserted that an interlocutory injunction should have been used in a delicate matter like the one involving ASUU and the Federal Government.
In a delicate issue like the one involving ASUU and the Federal Government, an interlocutory injunction, ought to have been fully addressed, given a prompt hearing, and finished without necessarily being postponed as it is at the moment.
He noted that the present year is a very negative one for Nigeria’s education sector and that the current administration has truly done a lot of harm to it, particularly in the past year and at all levels.
Describing the situation as catastrophic, he prayed that the incoming administration will have the will to issue a state of emergency in the area and clean up the disaster, which he estimated would take four or five years to clean up.
