UniAbuja says academic, administrative activities ongoing Newsdiaryonline

By Uche Bibilari

The Management of the university of Abuja (UniAbuja) says academic and administrative activities on campus will go on in spite of  reported strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

The Vice-Chancellor (VC) UniAbuja, Prof. Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, said this at a meeting with Provost, Deans, Directors and Heads of academic departments.

A statement from the meeting, signed by Dr Habib Yakoob, the Acting Director, Information and University Relations, was made available to newsmen on Friday in Abuja.

The vice chancellor described the strike as divisive and unnecessary, vowing that the management would never allow the university to be crippled again.

“As far as the management of the university is concerned, this institution is not on strike.

“Some people said they have declared a strike but all of us with the management have decided that our normal activities in the university must go on.

“Our exam is going on, senate meeting will continue, everything we do as a university will continue, our calendar will not be disrupted any longer by the grace of God.

“It is wrong to cripple the university over issues that are merely sentimental and some of which we have dialogued over and resolved, we are prepared not to allow this disruption again,” he said.

He debunked all the reported allegations of the union which they claimed informed its declaration of indefinite strike.

“Take for instance, the advert for the position of the vice-chancellor, we are not the only university that has advertised, we had the support and approval of the government.

“The advert was done by the Minister of Education, all I did as vice- chancellor was to request, to ask for what is next and they decided this is what we must do.

“And if you look at the advertisement from the beginning, this fact is very clear. It is only that they had to send it to us for execution that is all,” he explained.

He also described the union’s allegations of illegal recruitment, promotion, delay in the election of deanship, and microfinance bank establishment as unfounded, adding that the university had followed due process in handling all these matters.

He said the university ensured that relevant institutions concerned with oversights were contacted.

On the issue of the election of deans and establishment of microfinance bank, he disclosed that the elections time table had long been publicised.

He explained that the elections of four deans had been conducted so far.

Na’Allah also said that the university management had invested over N200 million in the proposed Microfinance Bank over the ASUU’s N4 million.

He said the investment had been made before the union wrote directly to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stop granting the license for our operation.

The vice-chancellor said his administration had been working hard to develop the university and would not fold its arms and allow a group of people to destabilise its calendar.

“For over four years, our goal has been to lift this university much higher than it was, and this we have succeeded in doing by taking our academic and infrastructural developments to a world class level. (NAN)