Incessant Strikes: ASUU Leadership Needs ‘Psychiatric Evaluation’, Jega Tells Piwuna

A public affairs commentator, Mahmud Jega, has called for psychiatric evaluation of the members of the National Executive Council (NEC) of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), saying it was important to examine the heads of those who take industrial action decisions nearly every year.

Jega, who is also the publisher of an online newspaper, 21st Century Chronicle, made the call in a post on his Facebook page on Tuesday evening, challenging the new ASUU President, Prof. Chris Piwuna, a Consultant Psychiatrist at the University of Jos Teaching Hospital (JUTH) in Plateau State, to undertake the medical evaluation of his team.

LEADERSHIP reports that Prof. Piwuna succeeds Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke as the new ASUU President at the 23rd National Delegates Congress of the Union in Benin City, Edo State, last weekend.

Apparently, reacting to the change of baton in ASUU, Jega, in a post titled ‘Piwuna, Examine ASUU’s Head’, wrote: “Most appropriately, Professor Chris Piwuna, the new National President elected at the Academic Staff Union of Universities’ [ASUU] 23rd National Delegates Congress in Benin City at the weekend, is a Consultant Psychiatrist. He takes over from Professor Emmanuel Osodeke, who just completed his tenure.

“Piwuna’s first task is clear enough. It is not to begin another round of endless negotiations with the Federal Government or even to call a total, nation-wide and indefinite strike over Earned Academic Allowances, University Autonomy, Revitalisation of Universities or Removal of Academic Staff from IPIS. No.

“He should instead order all members of ASUU’s National Executive Committee to immediately report to his clinic, for their heads to be thoroughly examined. It is important to examine the heads of those who take strike decisions nearly every year, some of the strikes lasting nearly a year, keeping a million students at home, thoroughly disrupting academic calendars, leaving parents gnashing their teeth, fueling the sending of rich kids to foreign schools, only for the strikes to be “suspended” but never called off.

“Let us see academic gowns lined up outside Professor Piwuna’s psychiatric clinic.”