Lecturers on election duty not representing ASUU – ASUU President

By Maryam Abeeb

The leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has declared that they were worried that “little or nothing has been done to ameliorate the excruciating conditions of Nigerians under which the 2023 general elections will be conducted.”

A release signed by ASUU president, Emmanuel Osodeke, Friday stated that life had become a nightmare for Nigerians and hoped that the general elections “will change the narrative.”

It added that “ASUU members who participate in the electoral process are just exercising their civic responsibility, but not representing the academic union.”

“Owing to some unpalatable reports available to the leadership of ASUU, the union resolved and stated after the 2015 general elections that it would no longer recommend its members to participate in the conduct of general elections as representatives of ASUU.

However, the union understands that members as citizens have civic rights and can make individual decisions on playing roles in the electoral process apart from voting,” the release read in part.

Osodeke thumbed down the federal government for its currency re-design project that has put average Nigerians in excruciating pains.

For the majority hapless and helpless Nigerians, the business of existence has become nightmarish with the implementation of the illconceived currency re-design policy.

“On a daily basis, ordinary citizens are confronted with a gruesome sense of abandonment by federal, state and local authorities whose primary responsibilities are security and welfare of the citizens. Poverty, hunger, diseases and sundry existential challenges have become daily companions of the citizenry.

Meanwhile, political elites carry on as if they have lost every idea about organising and running a decent society for the benefit of all. The country, no doubt, is in dire need of focused leadership that will restore order and inject life into a nation desperately gasping for breath.”

Osodeke said participation in the upcoming elections was a moral duty for all Nigerians, adding that “to change the narratives of ballot stuffing and snatching, thuggery, vote-buying and other electoral ills of the past, all hands must be on deck.