The attention of the Union was drawn to a publication titled “ASUU: Egoistic Union Deceiving Public in the name of Students’ Welfarism” and credited to one Patience Gaius” published on 2nd September, 2022 in Opinion Nigeria. I am not sure whether she is a Ms, Mrs. or Dr. (Ph.D) and also not aware of her trade. Anyway, it was an American writer, publisher and lecturer, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by his pen name Mark Twain who said “A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.” You can infer from the quote that they are both ignorant. The demands of the Union for embarking on the struggle are there in the public domain and curiously, the writer chose to discuss a different thing which I think is lack of knowledge arising from her poverty of the mind due to lack of reading.
The writer, Patience Gaius is of the opinion that the accreditation of courses or programmes in the university and those who constitute the resource verification teams are ASUU. Also, that government enforce ASUU’s findings and recommendations on which university or its programme should be sustained.
Therefore, the Union does not need to be on strike to better the University System. We wish to state that there is the need for the writer to know the difference between ASUU and academic staff of the university and try to understand how the two operate within the university. This will enable to writer know who to hold for poor accreditation exercises in the universities.
The writer also talked about ASUU members who are discomforted due to non-payment of their entitlement by government; and that some of them are dying. It is indeed unfortunate that government would use hunger as a weapon to force members to back down from their struggle.
Again, we wish to state that the person who paid Patience Gaius to write did not tell her much about the resilience of ASUU members. She should go back to her financiers to get more information.
To conclude the writer sees ASUU as an egoistic Union. Again this is coming clearly from lack of diction or knowledge about the operations of ASUU. If she had taken a little time to read about the activities of the Union and its demands, she would have known that one of them is the issue of “Revitalisation of Public Universities”. Therefore we wish to advice the writer in the words of Mark Twain, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Professor Adejumo is the Convener ASUU Rapid Response Committee.
