- ASUU president Biodun Ogunyemi discloses that the union would go on strike if its demands were not met by the federal government
- He notes that issues are also being compounded by state governments who keep on establishing more universities that they cannot cater to
- ASUU states that the union will not initiate any more meeting with the government and asks the federal government to initiate a meeting if they wanted to talk
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has stated that any attempt by the federal government to increase tuition fees in the country’s public universities will be resisted by the union.
This was stated by the president of the union Biodun Ogunyemi in an interview with Premium Times.
The union leader made his comments in reaction to reports of a possible increase in tuition fees in universities by the federal government.
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Ogunyemi also disclosed that ASUU could go on strike if the government failed to meet its demand on payment of salaries and adequate funding of the institutions.
He stated: “We will not tolerate any attempt to increase tuition fee, we are against telling people to pay more, even the current fees, we are still fighting them.
“We as a body have always stood against fee increment and we will continue to stand against it.”
According to Ogunyemi, since 2016, the union has been engaging with the federal government on issues rocking the university system.
He stated: “The truth is there are lots of issues rocking the system. We have made our position known to the federal government; we have also written to state governments who have refused to give subvention to their universities.
“Some of them cannot sustain one university and they go on to establish two or three, compounding the issues.
“We have given the government till June ending to attend to our needs; if the government does not call us by June ending we will convey a meeting to take our position.
“However, we are trying to engage the government but if they don’t invite us to a meeting before June ending, we will still take our position on whether we are going on strike or not.
“But that will not be like early July but middle or late July, that is if they don’t heed to our demands which includes payment of salaries, funding, research and lots more.”
When asked if ASUU would initiate a meeting with the federal government, Ounyemi stated: “We will not initiate any meeting if they don’t call us, we can’t initiate meeting.”
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Meanwhile, NAIJ.com previously reported that federal universities are starting to hike their prices, leaving many scared about the future of education for the average man in Nigeria.
According to the report, there have been changes in school fees of some institutions.
Watch this NAIJ.com TV video of students lamenting over JAMB registration hassles
