ASUU vows not to resume until their demands are met

Chairman of ASUU LAUTECH, Dr. Biodun Olaniran and Chairman, ASUU Ibadan, Dr. Ade Adejumo  announced in an interview on Galaxy TV today that the lecturers will not resume -- not even on February 1st -- if their demands are not met by the owner-states, Oyo and Osun, government.

This is coming as a rather unexpected blow to the students whose hopes had already been raised by Ajimobi’s promise during the protest Monday that LAUTECH will resume on or before February 1st.

Dr. Biodun Olaniran buttressed on the demands of ASUU. “The demands,” he said, “are very clear, and if there is any will on the part of the government, they are not difficult to meet.”

While explaining that the union had both long and short term demands from the government, he went further to state the short term demands which must be met before the agree to resume.

The short term demands, are as follows:

1) That the government pays their owed 7 months arrears, and;

2) That they state, clearly, their plans for future funding of the institution.

To achieve the first, he said, the two owner-state government should agree between themselves and then make money available for the payment.

He went on to mock the N500 million which Ajimobi revealed he and his counterpart, Aregbesola, would pay, stating that N500 million is infinitesimal compared to what they are being owed -- which is about N350 million for just one month.

Dr. Adejumo, on the other hand, complained that the owner-state governments are being misled to believe that the university can run on Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).

“‘They’ are not relating the true situation of things to the government,” he said, hinting an internal disparity between the union and the school management.

Recall that the university management was reportedly involved in Ajimobi and Aregbesola’s plan to pay up N500 million  already 

He went further to reveal that the university has been sustaining itself all these while through IGR. He stated that most of the things on the campus were done through the effort of ASUU. 

“In the last five years, I don’t think any of the owner state has done anything that has to do with the capital project of that campus,” he added.

Ajimobi has earlier announced that he will met with the unions tomorrow, Wednesday. From what we know, the meeting will still hold as expected, but from the reaction of the staff union leaders today, they are not willing to budge if their demands are not met.