Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has said the Governing Councils of state and federal universities lack the capacity to negotiate funding and condition of service of public universities with the union.
Professor Ayo Akinwole, chairman of the UI chapter stated this while responding to the assertion made by the pro-chancellor of Osun State University Yusuf Alli (SAN) that it was wrong for the federal government of Nigeria to negotiate with ASUU and force it on those not part of the negotiations.
Akinwole said the statement of the Pro – chancellor and chairman of council, Osun State University, Mallam Yusuf Alli, “is a regurgitation of non -practicable views of some detractors of public universities in Nigeria.”
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According to him, the statement of the Chairman of Governing Council of UNIOSUN “are words that do not take the social and economic issues of the Nigerian state into realistic consideration.”
He asked Alli to walk around UNIOSUN campuses and count the number of TETFund and NEEDS assessment infrastructure projects that have been executed to see the impact of ASUU struggles on state owned universities.
Akinwole stated that if not for ASUU’s struggles, many chairmen of Governing Councils who cannot bring up initiative to develop their schools would have destroyed the remnants of public varsity education.
ASUU therefore asked Alli to proceed to a private university if he is interested in negotiating salaries.
“How can he say councils that cannot develop infrastructure in universities except through ASUU agitation for university revitalisation and intervention of TETFund should be negotiating workers’ salary,?” he said.