The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Tuesday said some ministers are blackmailing its members for demanding their rights which resulted in the ongoing seven-month-old strike.
The union said it wrote to the House of Representatives and Senate in September and October 2021 but got no fruitful intervention before proceeding on the strike.
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Professor Ayoola Akinwole, chairman of the University of Ibadan chapter, who stated this at a press conference in Ibadan, said the National Assembly also reneged on its promise made to the union before it suspended the strike in 2020.
Akinwole said being invited by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, was not new stating that he did not also fulfill his promise to include the demands of the union in the 2021 budget.
He added that if not for ASUU struggles, the leadership of Nigeria would have had an easy ride of taking education out of the reach of children of the common man for them to become slaves to the children of the ruling class.
Akinwole urged Nigerians to stand up and make the government fund public universities, stop the proliferation of universities without funding existing ones, release a white paper on visitation panel and pay lecturers wages commensurate with Africa’s top-rated universities and release revitalisation funds to universities.
