University Lecturers May Still Go On Strike In 2023- Ex-ASUU President, Ogunyemi

A former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, is of the belief that there was no guarantee that the union will not embark on a fresh strike in 2023.

Prof. Ogunyemi who was a guest on a Channels Television programme on Saturday night, said in the new year, “nobody can promise there will be no strike In 2023.”

Prof. Ogunyemi based his premise on the Federal Government’s insensitivity to the plight of lecturers and noted that the lecturers may soon embark on another industrial action due to the injustice being meted on them by the government.

“We must understand what triggers strike action. I don’t think anybody can promise you there will be no strike in 2023,” Ogunyemi said.

“I don’t think any ASUU leader can promise that, because when our members’ salaries are withheld. Because if government is saying no work, no pay, then at some point, our members can say no pay, no work.

“The work they said our members did not do in 2022 between February and October, many universities have made our members to do the work; they have taught courses that were left untaught, they have conducted exams that were not conducted and they are about graduating students that ordinarily supposed to lose the session because the government failed.

“In our universities today, our members are being made to teach in arrears. If the government is withholding arrears of their salaries, things may get to a head where our members will insist that their salaries be paid,” he said.