EKSU fire back at ASUU President for regarding to universities resuming strikes as “Quacks.”
The Academic Staff Union of Institutions‘ (ASUU) President, Emmanuel Osodeke, has been ordered by Ekiti State University (EKSU) to apologize for calling state universities that chose to end their participation in the union’s nearly seven-month-old strike “quacks.”
The head of the school’s Directorate of Information and Corporate Affairs, Bode Olofinmuagun, released a statement on behalf of EKSU on Friday, calling the ASUU President’s statements unfortunate, reckless, and uncalled for.
The comment was disrespectful and deplorable, the university noted.
Osodeke criticized and repeatedly referred to the universities that are quitting the ASUU strike while appearing on Arise TV’s “The Morning Show” on Thursday.
He pointed out that several federal universities are continuing with their protest.
ASUU started the strike on February 14 because the Federal Government had not complied with its demands. Since then, every attempt to break the impasse has failed.
While the government met with the leaders of the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) last weekend and both organizations decided against taking similar action, ASUU claimed that the government had not yet complied with its demands.
EKSU responded to Osodeke’s assertion that state universities are quackery by calling it “arrant nonsense”
“The management of EKSU regards the national president of ASUU‘s disparaging statement about several colleges as unfortunate, careless, and unjustified.
“Ekiti State University, Ado- Ekiti is currently the 14th best university in Nigeria out of about 200 universities (federal, state and private) and the 2nd best state university according to the recent Webometric ranking of universities.
“Apart from the above, the university (EKSU) has nearly all its academic programmes accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and relevant professional regulatory bodies. “The university is proud to have many top-rated globally recognized academics, and its alumni are making waves both nationally and internationally.
“By the grace of God, Mr Biodun Oyebanji, the governor-elect of Ekiti State, is an alumnus and a former lecturer in the university.
“Even in ASUU, a number of staff of our university had served and are still serving in various capacities at zonal and national levels, including but not limited to Professor Afolabi Popoola, Dr Sikiru Eniola, Profs. Eddy Olanipekun, Ayan Adeleke and Olu-Olu Olufayo,” EKSU spokesperson Olofinmuagun further stated in the statement.
He continued by saying that classifying EKSU among the quackery and unimportant universities was evidence that the ASUU President might be misinformed and lacking in original thought.
EKSU demanded that the ASUU President take back the “provocative remark” and immediately apologize in totality.
