The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Akure Zone, has cautioned the federal government against pushing its members into avoidable confrontation over unresolved challenges facing universities in Nigeria.
Expressing displeasure over the handling of long-standing challenges in the university system by the federal government, ASUU frowned at the way its members were being treated.
Speaking at a press conference held at the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) in Ekiti State, the Zonal Chairman, Professor Adeola Egbedokun said, “For over two years, we have kept faith with the promise of dialogue and refrained from strike actions, but our patience has reached its limits.”
Egbedokun lamented that ASUU members have borne unbearable sacrifices, disclosing that their comfort has been traded on the altar of patience, hoping that the government would do the needful.
According to him, “If the government continues to play games with the future of our universities, then it must bear the consequences of the storm that will follow.”
Egbedokun listed the union’s demands to include renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement, opposition to the TISSF loan scheme, which it described as financial coercion, halting the proliferation of universities, and improved retirement benefits for professors and staff.
The union lamented, “We have sat in endless meetings with the Minister of Education, the supposed custodian of our nation’s educational future. We have engaged in consultations with every government agency tied to these issues. And what has been our reward? A deceitful game of delay and distraction—‘keep them talking.’”
“This is nothing but a cynical ploy to waste our time, weaken our resolve, and mock our sacrifices. We did not fold our arms; we reached out in good faith.
“We called on friends of the government, appealing to their conscience to prevail upon those in power. Yet, every attempt hit a brick wall,” Egbedokun said.
The Zonal Chairman lamented that the Union “has been pushed to the very edge.”
Egbedokun added, “In the face of the government’s hypocrisy, deceit, and wicked neglect, we state it without fear: enough is enough! From the criminal abandonment of the Yayale Ahmed report, to the debt trap of the TISSF loan, to the reckless proliferation of mushroom universities, and the barbaric treatment of our retired colleagues—the pattern is clear.
“This government has chosen to mock knowledge, insult scholars, and trample on the very foundation of the nation’s future. Let it be known: we are not fooled by empty promises, we are not beggars for loans, and we will not be pacified by deceitful half-measures. Our patience has limits.
“Our silence is not weakness. Our endurance is not submission. If the government insists on continuing this path of betrayal, then it alone must carry the curse of history.
“While noting that any regime that starves its thinkers, enslaves its workers, and abandons its elders will be remembered only with scorn, Egbedokun said, ‘Their names will rot in infamy, their legacies will stink of failure, and their actions will stand condemned as crimes against the nation.’
“The ball is no longer in our court. It is squarely in theirs. Let them choose: justice or judgment, action or upheaval, peace or the storm.
“We assure our members that the union will act decisively, without hesitation or compromise, in confronting the challenges before us.”
He, however, urged ASUU members to turn out massively for the rallies scheduled to hold across campuses on Tuesday, 26th of August, 2025, adding that the “rallies represent our first decisive response to the government’s inaction, a signal of what lies ahead if our concerns continue to be ignored.”
