The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has called on President Bola Tinubu to immediately stop the wave of resignations of high-profile professors and senior lecturers working in public universities, saying the mass resignation is caused by a lack of regard for tertiary education by the federal government.
The chairman, ASUU, University of Ibadan chapter, Dr Adefemi Afolabi, stated this while featuring on, “Situation Room”, a radio programme in Ibadan, noting that the government’s indifference manifests in the way it treats the welfare and conditions of service of its intellectuals in public universities.
The union, however, maintained that it would not abandon the fight to have decent welfare and conditions of service for its members and would ensure that governments commit adequate funding to the revitalisation of public universities in the interest of the children of the masses.
It would be recalled that ASUU commenced a two-week warning strike on Monday to protest the failure of the federal government to sign the renegotiated draft agreement reached with the Yayale Ahmed committee set up by the Tinubu-led government to renegotiate with the union which concluded its sittings over eight months.
According to Afolabi, the federal government took ASUU for granted for over eight months adding that the union was not happy to proceed on the warning strike but was forced to the delay tactic approach that the federal government adopted as well as its posture to jettison principle of collective bargaining.
The ASUU boss stated that the union waited for eight months, organised protests to sensitise Nigerians on the need for the government to sign the draft renegotiated agreement with the government committee headed by Yayale Ahmed but the government came back with a new committee to start the engagement all over.
Apart from Professors’ resignation, Afolabi lamented that young lecturers who were recently employed were also resigning as they were shocked by the salaries and conditions of service when they were paid.
