ASUU’s fresh demands, sabotage, says Don

A Lecturer at the University of Calabar, Dr Edidiong Ebitu, has described the new demands by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) as an act of sabotage of the education sector.

Ebitu made the declaration on Friday in Uyo in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

The teacher, who is a senior lecturer in the Department of Marketing in the university, said he was in support of the Federal Government’s directive that lecturers should resume classes.

“The various branches of ASUU had already voted to resume classes. The over four-months strike has done enough damage to the system.

“The president had made reasonable concessions, so ASUU should resume for other things to fall in place,” he said.

However, reacting to Ebitu’s views, the Secretary of the University of Uyo Branch of ASUU, Dr Aniekan Brown, debunked the claim that ASUU was making fresh demands.

“ASUU is not making fresh demands, ASUU is asking for the implementation of 2009 agreements.

“If any ASUU member says ASUU is making fresh demands, I doubt if that person is an ASUU member, that person is not informed,” Brown said.

NAN reports that ASUU is demanding among other things, immediate payment of all outstanding salary arrears and allowances of members withheld during the strike.

The union is also demanding a written commitment from the president that N225 billion will be committed to funding universities annually for the next four years.

The Federal Ministry of Education had on Nov. 28, directed the authorities of federal universities to re-open classes immediately and to treat lecturers who refused to resume work as having resigned.