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From David Onwuchekwa, Nnewi
The crisis rocking the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU), Anambra State, branch of the Academic Staff Union of the Universities (ASUU) has not abated, resulting in the two factions claiming to be in control of the affairs of the union.
A faction led by Prof. Okey Aniebo, COOU reconciliatory congress, is the leadership recognised by ASUU national body and attends the National Executive Council (NEC) meetings. It has vowed never to succumb to the other faction, alleged to be sympathetic to the university’s administration.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Osita Chiaghanam, leads the other faction. This group does not have the support of the ASUU national body and has never attended any NEC meeting.
The ASUU leadership crisis at COOU reached its climax recently when the two factions engaged in verbal altercations that nearly led to physical combat at the union’s secretariat. The groups have continued to clash at the secretariat from time to time since the disagreement started.
The Aniebo-led faction accused the other group of maltreatment and stopping their check-off dues. Aniebo, at a recent briefing held outside the school gate, alleged that his group had on several occasions been prevented from having meetings at the union’s secretariat, with the aid of the university’s security personnel on the Igbariam campus: “They said that the Federal Government instructed that we cannot meet at ASUU secretariat. A lot of our members went back. Some came to the secretariat to find out whether the story they got was true.
“On getting to the secretariat, the campus security men drove them away, including the truck man that brought seats we arranged for the meeting. That confirmed the instructions they gave at the gate. That is the highest level of tyranny in a university like ours where a professor cannot speak.
“There are many things going wrong in this university and nobody questioned him. ASUU members are intimidated without restraint.
“This is the first time in the life of this university that two deputy vice-chancellors, who are principal officers of the institution who should have nothing to do with trade unions, will disrupt union activities and congresses with the tacit support of the VC, who has turned himself into an emperor in this place.
“It is regrettable that, in COOU, the authority is hunting us and trying to kill the union, hunting down the union to make sure that its members do not have the strength to fight for their earned academic allowances (EAA). We are demanding ours from COOU.”
He also alleged that ASUU members, including himself, were being owed salary arrears for engaging in union activities.
However, Chiaghanam accused Aniebo of insensitivity, alleging that they tried to join the ongoing ASUU strike to retard academic progress and other activities at the university.
He disclosed that it would be out of place to welcome the incoming governor of the state, Prof. Charles Soludo, with industrial action, which, according to his group, has not yielded any good result for them in the past.
Chiaghanam, at a parallel briefing alongside his members, said the institution should be safeguarded against those he described as agents of destabilization and destruction masquerading as unionists.
“The university community, especially the academic staff in Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, is hereby placed on red alert to beware of a sinister and wicked plot by enemies of peace and merchants of doom to invade the university and ply their trade of blackmail, distortion, disruption and destruction.
“The latest plot being bandied by some hatchet men of ASUU-COOU reconciliatory congress is nothing but a well-rehearsed gang-up to recruit sympathisers to feather their self-warming nest of infamy. Sensing that their mission is dead on arrival, as usual, the meddlesome interlopers have resorted to mudslinging, cheap blackmail and arm-twisting, just to make an in-road into the conscience of a few unsuspecting members of the university community.”
He said individuals invaded the university in September 2020 and failed despite what he called their truckload of frenzied falsehood against the university management.
“The marauders must be told in clear terms that COOU is a community of people of honour committed to the best ideals of responsible unionism.
“It is an old-fashioned single story for the self-serving czars of stomach infrastructure to signpost non-payment of earned academic allowances and pensions at a time the university is reaping the gains of having a visionary management that courageously manned up to the ruins of the university’s past and changed the narratives for good.
“Yes, a ruinous past that was characterised by low staff morale, aridity, disenchantment and traumatising impoverishment of staff and systems brought about by the unbridled greed of power-hungry individuals that took the old university administration hostage and made COOU their personal vassal and fiefdom, where abuse of office, impunity and iniquity held sway.
“It beats no imagination that these locusts and cankerworms that championed and chaperoned the ignoble past have suddenly donned the robe of unionism in their desperate bid to regain access to the university coffers and reactivate their habitual pillage and plunder of our university. God forbid.
“Truth be told, before the advent of Prof. Nwakoby as the VC of COOU, the university was borrowing money to pay salaries. Not only did he stop the borrowing culture, he cleared all the debts, running close to a billion naira. As expected, the beneficiaries and commission-earners of the debt era went on rampage but could not prevail.
“Every labourer is worth his wage. In a clime where many sister universities are owing salaries up to eight calendar months, COOU is consistent in up-to-the-minute payment of salaries. This is an entitlement the university management evidently vowed to pursue as a matter of top priority. COOU does not owe salaries.
“Against the push and pull of beneficiaries of the old order of favour-currying-for-promotions, the Nwakoby administration broke all barriers to staff promotions, ensuring that staff that merit promotions are so promoted without discrimination, with attendant financial obligations of such promotions promptly implemented.
“The same great move to complete abandoned projects in the university caused him to muster funds with which the ASUU Secretariat in COOU was completed. Further to his union-friendly gestures, he paid arrears of check-off dues from 2015 with only four months remaining to be paid.
“Following the racketeering and bastardisation of COOU certificates, investigations revealed the existence of a colony of purported affiliates awarding degrees of the university contrary to NUC standards even in programmes not known to COOU. As a Professor of Law determined to preserve the integrity of the university’s certificates, the Vice Chancellor took appropriate legal steps and routed the degree-churning mills that were parading as affiliates. No doubt, the promoters of the old order didn’t go to sleep. For all they care, COOU under Prof Nwakoby must be pulled down.
“The essence of internal members in university councils is to give members of the university community a bold voice in council. Interestingly, the promoters of the latest attempt to disrupt the smooth running of COOU were variously elected into the university council but never made a case for EAA or staff pensions. The question is, what changed now that they are no longer in the university council?
“The university community is sufficiently motivated to fiercely resist any attempt no matter how veiled to lure any segment of the recognised unions into any kind of strike be it local or national. As a responsibly managed state university, the academic community in COOU is no longer available to escort any individual or group on national strikes that profit nothing to state universities.”
In their contributions, the interim Secretary, Prof. Ngangan, the interim Public Relations Officer, Prof. Kingsley Nwuozor and Prof Ezeogidi, described ASUU national as responsible trade union, noting that they were not against ASUU national leadership. They said that they would not allow unscrupulous elements to use the ASUU-COOU platform to perpetuate evil in the university.
ASUU national officials have queried the involvement of COOU two deputy vice chancellors in the crisis and wondered why the two university management staffs are at forefront of the faction. The officials decried the attitude of the VC and the Governing Council to the on-going internal face-off in ASUU-COOU.
As the battle stand, it is the responsibility of the governor, who is the Visitor to COOU to call the university management to order. It is clear who ASUU national recognised as the branch chairman.
