Stop Behaving Like Vultures - ASUU Tells Vice Chancellors, Others

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The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has told vice chancellors and council chairmen of universities to stop "behaving like vultures who roam the sky in search of carcasses to feast on".

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A statement issued on Sunday by Ade Adejumo, the Ibadan zonal coordinator of the union, called on top university officials to join the union in its struggle for improved tertiary education.

The union also denied reports that it had received the sum of N163billion from the government for the three-month-old strike to be called off.

On Saturday, Biodun Ogunyemi, the ASUU National, had also denied the reports that it received such amount of money, noting that the N163billion was from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).

The statement read: “Once again, the attention of our union has been drawn to another piece of misinformation which gives the impression that ASUU collects money from the government.

“For the umpteenth time, let it be known that our union is a patriotic organisation whose activities are driven by the principled conviction that the resources of the country can better be managed for the ultimate benefit of the Nigerian society, especially the education sector which is our immediate constituency.

“The government and all civilised individuals are aware of how the university is managed, so also the resources available to it. The government knows that it is the council and the university administration that receive and spend all the money coming into the university. ASUU doesn’t receive money from the government and doesn’t spend it.

“Even money meant for our salaries and other allowances come directly to the university administration which prepares the budget and manages it. ASUU members collect only their salaries as paid by the university. Contracts and all the capital projects are awarded by the councils that are appointed by the government, not ASUU.

“It is in the context of the above that our union calls on the vice-chancellors and council chairmen to stop behaving like vultures that wait silently by the sidelines, waiting for the game to fall only to descend on the carcass.

“They should join forces with ASUU in its struggles to attract requisite funding into our public universities, rather than working at cross purposes with us. Part of the least expected from them is to come out openly to put the record straight each time the government comes out with the deliberate falsehood that money has been released to ASUU.”