Date: 2017-12-05

...Sends SOS to Buhari, NASS Following almost two decades of non-participation in the activities of national leadership of Academic Staff Union of University, ASUU, by the University of Ilorin, the former has finally hit back at the latter, following its exclusion from the benefits accrued to universities from the federal government due to refusals to join strike within the period under review.

In view of this, members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, of the University of Ilorin yesterday sent a 'Save our Soul' message to President Muhammadu Buhari and leadership of the National Assembly over their non – as beneficiaries of the N23 billion Earned Academic Allowance, EAA, released last week to members of the union.

Recall that the university had pride itself with uninterrupted academic sessions as a result of this development,which subsequently made it the most sought after among other universities in the country by candidates seeking degree programmes. The EAA was in partial fulfillment of the agreements between ASUU and federal government.

The chairman of UNILORIN chapter of ASUU, Dr. Usman Adebimpe, at a news conference in Ilorin expressed dismay that teachers of the institution who did not go on strike for 18 years were being deprived of an allowance meant to compensate those who worked while their counterparts who were perennially on strike were being paid.

He traced the latest development to an unholy alliance between the national ASUU and the Ministry of Education, alleging that the ministry and its parastatals had been hijacked by the national ASUU to the detriment of well meaning educationists.

The ASUU's boss sought the intervention of the National Assembly to forestall a situation where members of the branch would be pushed to the wall.

He said: "After so many attempts at frustrating us and bringing us to their fold by force and not by dialogue, now they have now found an ally in the Federal Ministry of Education."