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The immediate past Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC), Administration, University of Ibadan (UI), Prof. Ezekiel Olusola Ayoola, yesterday, called on the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to review its strategies and focus on the welfare of its members as other professional bodies do.
He urged the union to leave the struggle for the release of revitalisation funds to the governing council and administration of each university.
Ayoola lamented that things had gone bad in terms of standard of living, saying that the current salary that scholars are receiving now had mercilessly been rendered useless.
He, however, decried the failure of the government to implement the policy of terminal salaries as life pensions for academics who retired at age 70 as professors and those who retired, having spent 20 years as full professors.
The former DVC, in a piece titled: “A Call for a Focus on the Welfare of Members by ASUU Leadership,” challenged the ASUU leadership not to close their eyes to the immediate plight of its members.
He lamented that fuel and food have consumed the salaries, with little or nothing left for ailing members to purchase medications, while the ASUU leaders continue to argue and talk about the
NEEDS Assessment Funds, otherwise called the revitalisation funds, which the union secured during the era of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
The former DVC said that academic members must be alive, hale and hearty first before they could use whatever building or facilities brought about through the revitalisation funds for scholarship.
He, therefore, urged ASUU leaders to allow each governing council of universities, university administration, and external members to continue from where ASUU stopped on the revitalisation of the universities.
Besides, he urged ASUU to emulate other unions whose members smile at the bank every month.
The professor lamented that younger lecturers trained and mentored in Nigeria are now fleeing abroad every day.
