Friday, 19th April 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Don urges government to be sincere with resolving ASUU strike

By Seye Olumide
09 December 2022   |   2:42 am
The Vice Chancellor of Dominican University, Ibadan, Oyo State, Prof. Hyginus Ekwuazi, has said that the Federal Government had not been sincere about resolving the lingering strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). The vice chancellor, who spoke at media briefing ahead of the institution’s first and second convocation ceremonies scheduled for Saturday,…

Dean of Students, DU, Fr Patrick Akunhe O.P; HOD, Mass Communication,DU, Professor Andrew Okwilagwe; acting vice chancellor, DU, Professor Hyginus Ekwuazi; member of governing council, Dr Juliet Shenge; acting registrar, Fr Samuel Onyiba O.P at the event.

The Vice Chancellor of Dominican University, Ibadan, Oyo State, Prof. Hyginus Ekwuazi, has said that the Federal Government had not been sincere about resolving the lingering strike of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

The vice chancellor, who spoke at media briefing ahead of the institution’s first and second convocation ceremonies scheduled for Saturday, December 10, 2022, blamed the protracted ASUU strike on the wrong approach and insincerity of the Federal Government.
“It is wrong for the government to insist it will not pay the lecturers because those lecturers would still come back to do the job. The implication of government’s decision is that if it refused to pay the lecturers for the period in question, it is the students that would suffer,” he said.

The professor of Film and Broadcasting said the work of lecturers is not what a government would say no-work-no-pay. I think the Federal Government must look for a way to resolve the crisis.

He added: “Lecturers produced the manpower in Nigeria’s human resources and therefore they cannot afford to be treated with contempt.

“Imagine also that facilities in public universities are abysmally poor and that is the condition under which these lecturers are working. I also want to sound this warning that if our government continues to pay lip service to the issue of ASUU strike, the implications is that what happened to public primary and secondary schools would happen to public universities where parents would not drift to private tertiary institutions.”

He also urged various arms of government to fund private universities.
 


Ekwuazi urged the Federal Government to adopt a system of reevaluating the job of lectures in the Nigerian public universities to be able to pay them commensurably for the job they are doing.
 
Professor Ekwuazi said it is wrong for the government to continue to pay lecturers the way it is doing because they are the ones producing the manpower.
    
He said the protracted strikes would kill all public universities and the drift will be to private universities, because parents will start sending their children to private universities and then we will be left with federal dilapidated structures in public universities. This is already happening.
 
Speaking about the upcoming convocation ceremonies, the VC said the budding institution is set to turn out a total of 47 graduates into the labour market at its combined first and second convocation ceremonies for the 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 academic sessions on Saturday, December 10.
 
He hinted that six of the graduands will be bagging first class, 22 second class upper division and 19 second class lower division.
 
The ceremony according to him, will kick off with a foundation lecture on Friday, December 9, 2022  to be delivered by the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the institution, Chief Anthony Idigbe(SAN), with the title ‘An Impact- The Vision for Dominican University, Ibadan at 2pm in the Tom and Caroline Walker Hall of the institution.”
 

In a statement made available to the press and signed by the head of publicity arm of the institution,  Rev, Fr Kenneth Nkadi, O. P at the event, the convocation lecture will be delivered by the chairman, BOT, Globus Bank Ltd, and a member of the governing council of the institution,  Mr Peter Amangbo.
   
The ceremony will be presided over by the chancellor Rev, Fr, Modestus Ngwu O.P, the chancellor of the university and other assemblies of the university for the conferment of degrees, diplomas, certificates among others.
 
The governor of Oyo State, Mr Seyi Makinde will be the chief guest at the convocation ceremonies, while the special guests of honour for the occasion are his Imperial Majesties, the Olubadan of Ibadan, Senator Moshood Olalekan Balogun, and the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II.
 

 
 

0 Comments