The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Benin Zone yesterday pleaded with Nigerians from all works of life to join ASUU in rescuing the dying university system.

Speaking, the Zonal Coordinator, ASUU-Benin Zone, Prof Fred Esumeh

in a press briefing at the ASUU Secretariat, the University of Benin, Edo State, said ASUU is calling on all well-meaning Nigerians to wake up and join the union in salvaging what remains of the country by repositioning the universities to be globally competitive and able to produce the manpower required to jump-start the re-emergence of technological and economic power.

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According to him: “We call on all well-meaning Nigerians, students, workers, Civil Society organizations to wake up and join ASUU to salvage what remains of the country by repositioning the universities to be globally competitive and able to produce the manpower required to jump-start the re-emergence as a globally technological and economic power.”

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“On the 14th of February 2022, ASUU, after more than a calendar year of exploring all available and legitimate means in its effort to compel the Federal Government of Nigeria to honor the terms of the Memorandum of Action it signed with the Union in December 2020, was left with no option, other than to declare a four-week roll-over strike.

But at the expiration of the four weeks when the government created the impression that it required more time to address the issues at stake, ASUU rolled over the strike for another eight weeks to provide the Federal Government with more than sufficient time to comprehensively sort out the patriotic demand by the Union.

“The representatives of government continue to toy with the future of our children, students and nation, such that fifty-seven days after they were sent packing from the institutions, the resolution of the principal outstanding issues of the deployment of the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) and the signing and implementation and the 2009 FGN-ASUU agreement remains at the level of mere proposals, fruitless and empty assurances. Yet these are issues that could have been adequately resolved in weeks by any well-meaning and serious-minded government”, he said.