OOU ASUU holds rally ahead of nationwide strike

The Academic Staff Union of Universities of the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, on Wednesday, held a rally to sensitise parents and students ahead of a national strike.

The rally led by the OOU branch acting Chairman, Dr Olooto Wasiu, took the lecturers around the university campus, where they told the students of the imminent strike action, urging them to understand that the strike is meant to save the nation’s public universities.

The Union also stopped over at bus terminals, where they addressed parents and motorists about the impending strike action.

Some of inscriptions on their placards read: “Nigerians, ASUU has sacrificed more than enough for the survival of the university system”, “FG stop playing politics with our educational system”, “Education is a right and not a privilege”, “Our negotiation should be completed and implemented”, among others.

The acting Chairman of ASUU in the institution, Dr Olooto, said that the lecturers organised the rally in line with the directive of the national body.

Olooto said that the strike ought to have since commenced but the Union elected to postpone to a later date in July to enable the lecturers to prepare the minds of stakeholders beforehand.

Speaking with journalists after the rally, Olooto identified non – non-implementation of the 2009 ASUU/FG agreement in full, rejection of the UTAS payment system developed by the ASUU and the continued use of the IPPIS to pay members as well as dissolution of some Governing Council of Federal Universities when their tenure has not yet ended, as some of the unresolved issues necessitating the impending nationwide strike by ASUU.

He disclosed that the government is also owing the lecturers three and half months under the guise of a ‘no work, no pay policy’ as punishment for a previous strike while the government has failed to attend to the union’s request for university autonomy as some of the reasons for the looming nationwide strike.

He explained that the strike was inevitable, hence the advance notice to Nigerians, especially stakeholders, so that nobody would be taken unaware.

Olooto said, “The basis of the rally we had today is to sensitize our students and stakeholders in the university about the impending action. The action may be determined by circumstances. It might be a strike or something else.

“The essence is to keep them aware that very soon and truly I say unto you that very soon the action will be exposed but it will be as directed by the national body. I believe that they have been sensitized and given their consent. So, if they heard that ASUU was on strike, they would have already been aware of it and its purpose.

“There are many things the government has not done. Our colleagues were being owed eight months’ salary because of the previous strike. They adopted the policy of ‘no work no pay.’ They have paid four and half months, it still remains three and half months unpaid. We are saying the remaining months owed to our members should be paid.

“The claim was that they didn’t teach but they forgot that the job of lecturers is not only limited to teaching. There are areas of community service, there are areas of research. Let them go ask the students if what they were supposed to be taught when ASUU was on strike was not eventually taught when the strike was called off.

“Immediately after the strike was called off and school resumed, we made sure that all that the students were supposed to learn were treated, they were examined, scripts were marked and results were released. What else did they want us to do that we did not do? So, there is no basis for withholding the three and half months salary of our members.”