OAU Lecturers Break Away From National ASUU

The Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) chapter of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has severed ties with the national body of the union.

It also formed a new association following a prolonged faceoff between the national and local chapter of the union.

The decision to pull out of ASUU national by OAU branch was taken at a congress held on February 12, when it rejected the resolutions of ASUU’s National Executive Council (NEC) meeting on the face-off between it and the parent body over an internal crisis.

It was learnt that the congress decided “to constitute itself into a branch that is totally independent of NEC, adopt the appropriate name and open a new branch account for the check-off dues of its members in this regards”.

It was also gathered that the resolution of the congress of the OAU chapter was signed by the chairman of its caretaker committee, Niyi Sunmonu.

“Last year, 732 of the 1,371 academic staff of Obafemi Awolowo University wrote to the university management to stop payment of their checkoff dues to the national body to express our displeasure against the way the national body handles the OAU branch’s crisis.

There are several reasons for pulling out which include the alleged unilateral removal of the elected treasurer by ASUU national president and also the alleged transfer of N11 million from OAU branch account to ASUU national account,” he said.

Also, the decision of ASUU’s NEC to accept the suspended and contentious result of the vice-chancellor selection and the rejection of the caretaker committee to run the affairs of the union, after the presiding officers had abandoned the congress midway on Thursday, October 20, 2016, which he conveyed, was another reason they pulled out.