ASUU embarks on strike over unpaid allowance in OAU

Blessing Akorowosi, Osogbo

The Academic Staff Union of Universities at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, on Monday commenced an indefinite strike over unpaid academic allowance by the institution management.

The union accused the Vice-chancellor of the institution, Prof. Eyitope Ogunbodede alongside the management of delaying their allowance which according to them, had been remitted into the university’s account by the government since December 13, 2021.

The school management however, expressed readiness to pay the allowance but pointed that the discrepancy between the two factions of academic staff members of the university has delayed the disbursement of the money.

A splinter faction of the OAU chapter of ASUU under the umbrella of the Congress of Nigerian Universities’ Academics (CONUA) had disagreed with the mainstream ASUU over the sharing formula to be adopted for the disbursement of the allowance by the management.

It was gathered that the two groups had designed two different templates to share the fund but the university management had requested harmonisation, and held several meetings with the two factions without a resolution.

Rising from an emergency congress, which was held at the First Bank Lecture Hall of the institution on Monday, the campus ASUU resolved to embark on total strike and also constituted a committee to monitor the industrial action.

According to the resolutions issued by the union and signed by its chairperson, Dr Adeola Egbedokun, “the congress resolved that total, comprehensive and indefinite strike should commence immediately; the strike must not be called off without a congress resolution to the effect; payment of EAA must be based on ASUU computation. Anything short of this would be unacceptable.

“The Strike Coordinating Committee be set up to monitor the strike. Based on the above and on the strength of the permission granted by ASUU National President, the Chairman, on behalf of the congress declared the commencement of ASUU OAU’s strike at exactly 11:53 am.”

However, the Public Relations Officer of the university, Mr Abiodun Olanrewaju has assured that the strike would not affect academic activities as the other faction of the lecturers (CONUA) would continue with the lectures.

Olanrewaju said, “The University has a union that comprises members of the academic staff; we have another union of ASUU members that also comprise of academic staff members and that one is called CONUA. So, in effect, there are two factions of unions peopled by the academic staff members. Now, the money in contention is Academic Earned Allowance.

“So, since we have two unions on ground and the two unions are not on the same page as to the disbursement of the money, the university management doesn’t want to pander on either of them. We now ask the two unions to go to the drawing board and come up with acceptable pattern that will be suitable to the two of them, then we will disburse the money. So, other members of academic staff that are of CONUA extraction are working.

On how the controversies would be resolved, the university PRO said, “These (lecturers) are adults. These are members of staff. The management doesn’t want to dabble into union matters. So, the two unions should come together because they belong to the same profession and come up with a template. The two of them should agree on the way they want the money disbursed, that’s all.”