ASUU: Gbajabiamila Conned Us Into Calling Off the Strike
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has accused House Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila of deceiving the union by requesting that it end its eight-month strike in exchange for a written guarantee that the government would immediately offset in full the arrears of wages owed to union members. This request was made in October.
The union president, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, provided this response on Tuesday in an exclusive interview with Tribune Online when asked to comment on the speaker’s involvement and, conversely, on the present state of their conflicts with the Federal Government.
He said that ASUU had a soft spot for the speaker and that this was why the union sought out his input in order to break the impasse between it and the federal government.
He said that Gbajabiamila even sent the ASUU leadership a document with his signature demonstrating the government’s sincerity about paying the eight-month salary that the union’s members were due, as well as promptly attending to several other concerns and outlining how to do so.
He said that among other things, the oddities in the contentious Universities Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) and the house committee’s role in budget allocation were some of the reasons for these worries.
He said that when the Speaker intervened, ASUU decided to call off the strike in the hopes that his words would be followed by deeds.
He said that ASUU members and the rest of the world at the time both hailed him for his intervention without realizing it was all a lie.
Osodeke noted that the general perception of Gbajabiamila among ASUU members as of right now is that he conned them into returning to their jobs before quickly settling matters.
The Speaker hasn’t spoken anything concrete since then at least on the problems, much alone ensuring that his pledges are kept, Osodeke said. “But here we are today, nothing has been done over the promise, and that is why,” he said.
He said that the Speaker would have to speak out since he still has the chance to refute ASUU’s assertions by just carrying out the pledges he made to the union.
