- Blames ASUU made up of professors for being gullible
A civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), on Friday, lambasted the House of Representatives led by Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila for mischievously deceiving the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to end their eight-month strike, knowing well that the federal government would not give the lecturers their demands.
HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said the House breached the trust of the university lecturers who, upon the intervention of Gbajabiamila, suspended their industrial action. However, HURIWA was quick to lambast the star-studded hierarchy of ASUU, made up of hard-core academics and learned professors, for letting the political maverick like the Speaker to smooth-talk them into softening on their ideologically grounded fight for social justice and capitulated to political sweet talks of the legislators.
The group said it is very disappointing now that the lower chamber suddenly turned its back against the lecturers after the government, through cunny fables, got them to return to the classrooms to give a false impression to the entire world that Nigerian education system was working and to use it as a campaign tool for the 2023 ambition of the ruling All Progressives Congress to perpetuate itself in power.
According to reports, Spokesperson for the House, Benjamin Kalu, said the federal government was not under any obligation to pay ASUU the salaries of its members for the duration they were on strike.
Gbajabiamila had also backed the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, on the no-work, no-pay policy, and said lecturers deserved pro rata payment for the month of October.
Onwubiko’s statement reads in part: “It is so disappointing that the Femi Gbajabiamila-led Green Chamber has no modicum of honour at all. How does any rational human fathom that after weeks of persuading ASUU led by Prof Emmanuel Osodeke, to call off the prolonged strike and after the lecturers did, the same Speaker Gbajabiamila turned his back on the lecturers and backed the APC government? Pathetic!
“Isn’t the Speaker supposed to be dispassionate and be devoid of prejudice? This breach of trust is unpardonable and questionable. Nigerians are not fools; they understand the game the Speaker is playing: get ASUU to hold on as he uses ‘smooth academic session’ at public universities to campaign for APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu; whereas, lecturers are still being owed.
“HURIWA condemns the shenanigan by the lower chamber and calls on it to fulfill its part of the bargain by getting the Federal Government to pay the lecturers their earned allowances and other entitlements.”
