A group of professors on Wednesday said they had formed a parallel leadership in the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, accusing the substantive leadership of the local ASUU of being confrontational to the management of the university.
But the Chairman of ASUU in the university, Prof. Harris Odimegwu, dismissed the group’s action, saying they had no basis to speak for ASUU as there was just one ASUU in the country and one branch of it in the university.
The group, which called itself NAU ASUU Progressives, told a press conference in Awka that its members were disturbed that the approach of the ASUU leadership to issues in the university would disrupt the academic and administrative programmes of the university for which the university had been globally acclaimed.
ASUU had last week accused the Vice-Chancellor of the university of appointing people, who were not qualified to the Senate of the university against the recommendation of the White Paper on the Visitation Panel Report of the university.
In the address, read by the Chairman of the group, Prof. Maduabuchi Dukor, the ASUU Progressives said they were standing by the vice-chancellor of the university, Prof. Boniface Egboka, and the university’s Senate to build a formidable institution.
It said, “It is on record that UNIZIK staff have not gone on strike for more than a decade now. Our students have enjoyed uninterrupted academic activities for more than a decade. The current ASUU-NAU does not love peace and therefore intends to disturb the academic peace in the university.
“We dissociate ourselves individually and collectively from the factional ASUU’s stubborn efforts to destroy the legacies of UNIZIK in Nigeria and in the world.”
They accused the Odimegwu-led leadership of ASUU of being used by people interested in the soon-to-be-vacant office of Vice-Chancellor of the university to antagonise the management of the university.
But Odimegwu said the union had no issues with the struggle for the position of the vice-chancellorship.
He said what ASUU had asked the vice-chancellor to do is to correct the appointment of unqualified persons into the university Senate.
He added that those that had stood out to oppose ASUU had always been given the opportunity to raise their grievances at ASUU congresses.
Members of the ASUU Progressives include Profs. Edmund Egbo, Kenn Nwogu, Chuka Obiozor, E.O. Akwuezuilo, Oliver Onyali, P.A.C. Okoye and Steve Ibenta.
