ASUU splinter group urges varsity VCs to recall students for resumption

Lecturers under the aegis of the Congress of University Academics (CONUA) on Monday urged vice-chancellors of public universities in the country to recall students for academic activities.

CONUA, a splinter group of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), had in August declared the readiness of its members to return to classroom in the interest of the students.

The National Secretary of CONUA, Dr. Henri Oripeloye, who made the call in a statement, asked the vice-chancellors to recall students for resumption of academic activities because many lecturers are ready to resume work after they complied with the Federal Government’s directive on Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

He said apart from members of CONUA, “there are lecturers who don’t belong to any union and are willing to return to classroom.”

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The secretary said: “We reject in strong terms, the claims that we are members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). We are an independent union on university campuses in Nigeria.

“We commend the National Universities Commission for directing the opening of universities nationwide. We want our universities to be reopened so that they will not be left behind in the scheme of things.

“CONUA believes in constructive and objective engagement with the government rather than strike.

“One of CONUA’s dreams is that strike action as a weapon to force government’s attention should become history. We don’t know anything about UTAS, we believe in fruitful interaction with the government and to achieve our requests from the government.

“CONUA has no conflict with ASUU. The two unions only differ in terms of philosophy and ideology which is reflecting in their approach to getting the government to accede to requests. And this is being done on the issue of IPPIS as CONUA has been interacting with the government on how to solve many of the problems that have been identified with the platform.”

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