THE Ekiti State University (EKSU) has demanded that the President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Emmanuel Osodeke, retract his comment labelling state universities pulling out of the union’s nearly seven-month-old strike as quacks.
In a statement by the school’s Head, Directorate of Information and Corporate Affairs, Bode Olofinmuagun, on Friday, EKSU said the ASUU’s President’s remark was unfortunate, reckless and unwarranted.
The university added that the comment was unacceptable and condemnable.
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While featuring on Arise TV’s ‘The Morning Show’ on Thursday, Osodeke had criticised the universities that are withdrawing from the ASUU strike and repeatedly called them quacks.
He noted that major federal universities are not backing down from the strike.
The ICIR reports that ASUU embarked on strike on February 14 over demands that have not been met by the Federal Government. All efforts to end the logjam have since failed.
While the Non-Academic Staff Union of Universities (NASU) and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU) called off similar action after the government met with their leaders last weekend, ASUU said the government was yet to meet its demands.
Responding to the claim that state universities are quacks, EKSU described Osodeke’s comment as “arrant nonsense”.
“The management of EKSU views this denigrating remark about some universities, coming from the national President of ASUU, as unfortunate, reckless and unwarranted.
“Ekiti State University, Ado- Ekiti is currently the 14th best university in Nigeria out of about 200 universities (federal, state and private) and the 2nd best state university according to the recent Webometric ranking of universities.
“Apart from the above, the university (EKSU) has nearly all its academic programmes accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC) and relevant professional regulatory bodies. “The university is proud to have many top-rated globally recognized academics, and its alumni are making waves both nationally and internationally.
“By the grace of God, Mr Biodun Oyebanji, the governor-elect of Ekiti State, is an alumnus and a former lecturer in the university.
“Even in ASUU, a number of staff of our university had served and are still serving in various capacities at zonal and national levels, including but not limited to Professor Afolabi Popoola, Dr Sikiru Eniola, Profs. Eddy Olanipekun, Ayan Adeleke and Olu-Olu Olufayo,” EKSU spokesman Olofinmuagun said in the statement.
He added that categorizing EKSU among the quacks and irrelevant universities was a testimony to the fact that the ASUU President might be uninformed and bereft of ideas.
EKSU asked the ASUU President to retract the “provocative remark” and tender an unreserved apology without delay.
Marcus bears the light, and he beams it everywhere. He's a good governance and decent society advocate. He's The ICIR Reporter of the Year 2022 and has been the organisation's News Editor since September 2022. Contact him via email @ [email protected].