The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has decried growing resignations among high-profile professors in public universities who are leaving the country in search of better opportunities abroad.
ASUU Chairman, University of Ibadan chapter, Dr Adefemi Afolabi, during a radio programme, Situation Room, in Ibadan, Oyo State, noted that apart from professors’ resignations, recently employed young lecturers were also resigning due to poor salaries and working conditions.
“We don’t work in an ideal environment. How do you reward your intellectuals with so little and still expect them to be happy and continue to work?” he queried.
Afolabi noted that the ongoing strike was triggered by the union’s dwindling trust in the government’s commitment to collective bargaining and its perceived lack of sincerity in addressing the welfare of academic staff in public universities.
He added: “You don’t want to strike, but government policies disrupt livelihoods and survival of lecturers with galloping inflation.
“How can you not trust your own committees and still come up with another committee to review what the last committee did, and then set up yet another expanded committee to meet with the union again?”
According to him, the situation is terrible. “Lecturers are finding it difficult to come to the office due to the high cost of transportation. Those who come cannot concentrate because of many unmet needs,” Afolabi said.
He expressed sadness that the Federal Government had taken ASUU for granted for too long, noting that the union was forced into the warning strike due to its “delay tactics” and disregard for the principles of collective bargaining.
ASUU, on Monday, commenced a two-week warning strike to protest the Federal Government’s failure to fulfil its demands. It said the Federal Government had not shown regard for tertiary education with 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.
