The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is challenging the management of the University of Ilorin's (UNILORIN's) claim that it  mooted the idea of retiring university professors at 70.

ASUU's position came a few weeks after it called off a two-month strike. The 70-year retirement age was one of the high points of the strike.

UNILORIN, in an editorial in its weekly bulletin, had argued that rather than ASUU, the credit for the new retirement age should go to its Vice-Chancellor, Professor Isaq Oloyede, whom it claimed was the first to have made the demand in 2009.

But ASUU is contesting this, saying the school authority lied.

A statement signed by the Ilorin Zonal Coordinator of ASUU, Dr. P.A. Enikanoselu, on behalf of the National President, Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie, said there were recorded evidences to show that the matter was part of the minutes of the negotiation meeting between government and the teachers held on September 13, 2007.

The UNILORIN editorial had, in its January 23 edition, said:  "Contrary to what many people know, the "struggle" for this new retirement age is only apparent but not real. This is one demand that had been granted before one of the staff unions started to make it part of the re-negotiated 2006 agreement towards the end of 2009. At that point, clamouring for a 70-year retirement age amounted only to preaching to the converted.

"The first person to advocate the 70-year retirement age for university teachers is Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as the Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The credit therefore first goes to Mr. President. If any other person or entity can lay claim to the victory, it is the Vice- Chancellor of the University of Ilorin or his university. This is not a gratuitous assertion and the Internet has made research easy for anyone in doubt.

"While the suggestion of the then Vice-President in Abuja got buried in the reports of other national issues gushing out in torrents, the idea resonated well in the national consciousness when the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Oloyede, while addressing the 37th meeting of the Committee of Deans of Postgraduate Schools in Nigerian Universities (CDPGS) at the University of Ilorin on March 11, 2009 made a call for what has now become law, exactly as he proposed it, in an address he called "The Way Forward."

In Awuzie's words: "This statement is not only false but provocative," adding: "This conclusion is particularly provocative, not only because ASUU and the Federal Government had reached agreement on this issue before the date of the UNILORIN speech, but also because the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Oloyede, is a well known opponent of ASUU struggles. For the university to try to claim credit for aspects of the struggle after victory has been won through the union's struggles is the height of provocation and insensitivity."