UNILORIN ASUU crisis over — Raheem

There are strong indications that the two decade-long feud between the University of Ilorin chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the national headquarters of the union will soon become a thing of the past.

This development is a sequel to series of consultations between ASUU UNILORIN chapter, led by Dr. Usman Adebimpe Raheem, and the remnant of the erstwhile splinter group under the leadership of Dr. Kayode Afolayan as supervised by a delegation from the national headquarters of the union led by Dr. Ben Ugheoke.

A five-point resolution to this effect was signed by the trio on Wednesday, July 3, 2019.

Reacting to the development, the chairman of the UNILORIN chapter of ASUU, Dr. Usman Adebimpe Raheem, said that the reconciliation is a welcome development.

In an interview with Tribune Education at the union’s secretariat in Ilorin, Dr. Raheem commended the ASUU national executive council team for the mature and methodical manner the reconciliation is being pursued.

He noted that “no situation in life is permanent” and that “any situation that has a beginning must necessarily have an end.”

Raheem acknowledged the intervention of the current management of the university, at whose instance the reconciliatory process was initiated, saying that his members were always for peace and progress of the university.

Dr. Raheem also commended the national leadership of the union which did everything to ensure that “an end must be brought to the crisis and that we should work together under the same union, ASUU.”

Why we concentrate on security, infrastructure development ― Buhari

He recalled that the panel had “extensive interactions with members to arrive at compromises and sacrifices with the conclusion that none of the parties should do anything to undermine the peace process.”

Justifying the reconciliation, Dr. Raheem said that it was unfair to allow staff and students of the university who were not part of the over two decades feud to bear the brunt of the protracted crisis.

He also dismissed apprehension in some quarters that the re-integration will open the university to the floodgate of perennial strikes, saying that both the union and the management of the university would continue to do everything possible to ensure that the prevailing peace of the university is sustained.

While he congratulated his colleagues on the development, Dr. Raheem said that the University of Ilorin stands to gain a lot from the new found peace.

“We can now walk freely to any campus in Nigeria, interact with colleagues, collaborate with academics from other universities for research, examination and peer review purposes,” he enthused.

While noting the business of running the system by the management would be a lot easier, Raheem said that as a mark of the new found peace, his union had a very peaceful, successful and well-attended congress a day earlier where it was “decided that there must be peace and so peace must prevail.”