ASUU splinter group, CONUA distances self from UniAbuja strike

The Congress of University Academics (CONUA), the University of Abuja Chapter, has distanced itself from the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the university.

The Chairman of CONUA in the university, Prof. Abdul Buba, stated this when the group paid a courtesy visit to the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Abdul-Rasheed Na’Allah, in Abuja on Friday.

Buba said the university system could not be grounded due to the absence of a Governing Council.

ASUU began an indefinite strike on May 2 to protest the absence of a governing council in the university.

Baba said: “We believe in a stable academic calendar and that’s why we believe that there are other ways of handling labour issues rather than strike actions.

“CONUA addresses issues and not personalities. We also respect the opinions of our members and not a predetermined objective of the leadership.

“We address issues without sentiments and meet with the right stakeholders in the pursuit of our objectives.

“We are conscious of the negative effects of strikes, and we believe in deploying relevant strategies that will yield positive results in the modern age of innovation.”

READ ALSO: UniAbuja ASUU embarks on indefinite strike

He added that CONUA would continue to engage relevant stakeholders to pursue legitimate welfare for its members without dabbling into issues not of concern to its members.

“The ongoing strike in place in the university, CONUA is not part of it because we believe in academic and service delivery.

“All these five points for the strike are baseless.

“Let me start with the issue of advertorial for the position of vice chancellor, initially if it were the council is in place everything about employment both the employees and the principal officers starts and ends with the university governing council.

“But in the absence of the university governing council, the law has no provision for the vice chancellor to appoint any successor so it is the responsibility of the government to do that. So, there is no way the VC can be accused.

“This is because even the advertorial if you watch and other advertorials that were placed by other universities, it was mentioning the ministry representing the government so this is baseless,” the chairman stated.

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