OAU-NASU, Management At Loggerhead

Feb 10th, 2010 | By admin | Category: NEWS

The Non-Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (NASU), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife chapter has resumed another round of hostilities with the institution’s authority just as the students of the university barely finished their rain semester examination last Friday.

OSUN DEFENDER last week witnessed how members of the union stormed various offices in the university while being armed with canes and sticks, driving out their members from the offices and ordering them to embark on another strike action, as they had resumed fresh hostilities with the authorities of the institution.

In the same vein, the medium gathered that the members of the union also stormed the office of the Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Professor Michael Fabororde, but it was learnt that the head of the institution had travelled to Abuja on an official assignment.

On Friday, the members of the union also picketed offices in the institution before they started chanting abusive songs against the institution’s authority, while they embarked on a procession round the university campus, demanding their alleged deducted salaries.

Investigation by the medium in the institution revealed that the fresh hostility against the institution’s authority is not unconnected with the former demand of the association over alleged illegal deductions from their members’ salaries under the pension scheme fund.

Some of the members of the union who spoke with the medium under anonymity confirmed these facts, that the strike the union members embarked on was not unconnected with their former demand from the authority of the institution.

The source also revealed that the institution’s authority, immediately after the resumption of work after the general strike embarked upon by the academic and non-academic staff throughout the federation, the institution authority paid them part of the withheld deducted fund, under the guise of ameliorating their suffering and financial hardship the general strike had inflicted upon the workers.

But later after the authority had considered the implication of its actions through its senate, refuted the claims that the university authority was owning the staff of the union some amounts illegally deducted from their salary.

The medium also gathered that the executives of the union in a meeting held with the university authority were assured that the demand of their staff would be granted but they should give the authority of the institution time to rectify their claims with the pension board so as to resolve the workers’ claim.

The source added that till date, the union had not heard any news from the institution authority, but since they did not want the institution to pitch them against the students, the union withheld their peace until the students finished their last year’s rain semester examination, before they embarked on an industrial action with the institution authority.

Meanwhile, some of the final year students of the institution and other students who had finished their examination had vacated their halls of residence, while post-graduate students will finish their examinations on Monday.

The medium learnt that the vice-chancellor of the institution had since not come to the office, since the non-academic staff of the institution embarked on the fresh strike against the management of the institution.

Some of the vacating students who spoke on the inhouse industrial action embarked upon by NASU condemned the action, contending that the union and the university authority were playing hide and seek game on the matter.

They therefore counselled both the institution authority and NASU to resolve the issue on time, as they did not want the matter to linger till 7th of March, the resumption date, for harmattan academic session.

By sola jacobs

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