Irked by what it insisted was an illegal examination, the Benin Zone of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has petitioned Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Edo State to the National Universities Commission (NUC).
The state-owned tertiary institution which is presently part of the ongoing nationwide strike action by the union had recently conducted its second-semester examination.
Speaking Monday in Benin, the zonal coordinator, Prof. Fred Esumeh said that the union will never recognize the outcome of the examination which was not conducted by the striking lecturers.
Prof. Esumeh said that going by the fact that the examination was written without the students being taught by the lectures, certificates from the school risked not being recognised by professional bodies anymore.
He accused the authorities of running foul of the law as a semester has 14 weeks as against the three weeks of lectures at the institution before the strike started resulting in some courses not being taught.
The coordinator charged: “This is wrong and we have told the university authorities. Left we no choice, we decided to petition the regulatory and professional bodies on the anomaly that is going in Ambrose Alli University.”
He said that the union intends to eventually petition the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria), Council for the Registration of Engineers in Nigeria (COREN), Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) and other professional bodies are not to recognize certificates issued by the school.
The unionist added: “In line with our earlier threat, we have written to NUC to draw attention to the conduct of illegal examination by the authorities of AAU. NUC should not recognize the results of the examination. ASUU is still on strike. Lecturers at AAU were not part of the examination and will never recognize it. We intend to petition the different professional bodies not to recognize certificates from AAU.”
Prof. Esumeh who was joined by the chairmen of branches under the zone, said the union frowned at the poor funding and mismanagement of the university’s resources with the management’s inability to meet its obligation of payment of staff emoluments, hence a resort to irregular and selective payment of salaries.
According to him, the recent reduction in the monthly subvention of the university to an abysmally low N41.3 million from N270 million has led to the workers being owed 20 months of salary arrears from 2020 to date, with 15 months of unremitted sundry deductions to staff unions.
This, he noted had put the total amount the university owed the union members and associations at N4 trillion.
“The state government must of a necessity intervene at this point to clear the arrears of emoluments of workers of the university.”
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