Pascal Arogorn Ibe
Lecturers under the aegis of the Congress of Universities Academic (CONUA) has appealed to Vice Chancellors to recall students for academic activities, noting that they are not on strike.
Notably, CONUA is a faction that has broken away from Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), and has expressed its willingness to return back to lecture rooms.
This was disclosed by the National Secretary of CONUA, Dr Henri Oripeloye, a Lecturer in OAU, Ile Ife, in a press statement titled “ASUU: Breakaway faction begs VCs to recall students for academic activities”, at a press conference at the Federal University Oye Ekiti which was sighted by TheNigeriaLawyer.
Meanwhile, Oripeloye stated that “should VCs recall their students now, academic activities will resume without any rancour in public varsities as many lecturers are ready to resume since they have complied with government’s directive on IPPIS”.
Oripeloye, who led members of CONUA across various universities to the press conference, said apart from members of the body, “there are those (lecturers) who don’t belong to any Union and are willing to teach”.
“We reject in strong terms, the claims that we are members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities. We are an independent union on university campuses in Nigeria.
“We commend the National University Commission for directing the opening of Universities nationwide. We want our universities to be reopened so that they will not be left behind in the scheme of things”, he said.
Also, he further stated that “CONUA believes in constructive and objective engagement with the government rather than strike”, adding that “one of CONUA’s dreams is that strike action as a weapon to force government’s attention should become history”, the lecturer said, “We don’t know anything about UTAS, we believe in fruitful interaction with the government and to achieve our requests from the government.
“CONUA has no conflict with ASUU. The two unions only differ in terms of philosophy and ideology which is reflecting in their approach to getting the government to accede to requests. And this is being done on the issue of IPPIS as CONUA has been interacting with the government on how to solve many of the problems that have been identified with the platform”, he said.
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