No plan to sack Benue varsity VC — ASUU

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, Benue State University Branch (ASUU-BSU) has dismissed the report that it wanted the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Professor Tor Iorapuu removed.

This is contained in a statement issued by Comrades Kwagfan Tarnongo and Terrumun Gajir, Chairman and Secretary respectively, and made available to newsmen in Makurdi late Thursday.

Recalled that ASUU-BSU had embarked on a local strike on the 1st of February, 2024 to press for entitlements of its members.

These entitlements include the implementation of promotions and annual step increments, payment of the accrued arrears of promotion, and annual step increments.

The union claimed that for all of these entitlements, the State Government has been providing funds to the tune of seventy million naira (N70,000,000.00) since January 2023.

Other issues include payment of earned academic allowances (EAA) and honoraria for self-sustaining programmes of the University.

The union noted that the state government through the Secretary to the State Government and the State Assembly had been intervening on the issues but regretted that some fifth columnists were now twisting reports to blackmail the union.

“The BNSG through a committee headed by the SSG has been interfacing with the Union to resolve this crisis.

“The Benue State House of Assembly has, also, waded into the matter. The Branch is therefore shocked at this attempt to reduce its legitimate struggle for the entitlement of members to the removal of the Vice Chancellor of BSU. This s reprehensible and most unfortunate,” the statement read in parts.

The union noted that the misleading report was an attempt at disinformation and was sponsored to blackmail the branch and poison the minds of unsuspecting members of the public.

ASUU-BSU said it would resist the temptation to find and expose the sponsors of the misleading report, saying, ‘this is an attempt to distract us from our struggle, even though we have our suspicions’.