The striking Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Monday said it remained resolute to get the needed support for public universities.
The union said it would not sacrifice its members’ welfare and would resist any effort to turn intellectuals into slaves of irresponsible leadership.
The chairman of the University of Ibadan chapter, Professor Ayo Akinwole, who stated this in Ibadan asked Nigerians to disregard the federal government’s claims that it had met the union’s demands except for the withholding of the lecturers’ salaries.
“We waited for 14 months from December 2020 to February 2022 before declaring this strike. I am saying 14 months’ notice, 14 months of engagements, and the Nigeria Inter Religious Council (NIREC) intervened in 2021 when we would have declared the strike. We gave them one month with no results. Heroes are gone before they are appreciated but our union will not die. We will not die. We are going to be alive to see this struggle through,” he said.
Akinwole disclosed that the N1.1trillion revitalisation fund for public universities was arrived at by the federal government through her NEEDS Assessment report on the level of decay in Nigerian public universities.
