MAYDAY: Nigerian workers suffer, bear burden of political corruption – ASUU laments

Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU) has asked Nigerian workers to rise and resist a system that has consistently exposed them to suffering under the burden of the current political and financial corruption of the ruling class.

ASUU, also asked President Muhammadu Buhari to toe the path of honour and sign the already renegotiated agreements which will improve the working conditions and make our universities look like a real knowledge ecosystem.

This was contained in a MAY DAY press release signed by the Chairman University of Ibadan Chapter of the Union, Professor Ayo Akinwole entitled “for still surviving in a country that lacks workers’ friendly government; Nigerian workers deserve a salute”

Professor Akinwole asked Nigerians to decide to elect in 2023 a leader who can protect them and not to elect someone based on zoning or regional presidency but rather focus on the competence of the person who is capable to rid the land of injustices.

While describing the Government of President Muhammadu Buhari as unfriendly to workers, Professor Akinwole asked the Nigerian workers to resist being used to terrorize themselves through the adoption of divide and rule by the government.

Akinwole noted that Nigeria “is a fiefdom of competing warlords, an assemblage of officially certified terrorists, carnivals of jesters and bands of thieves dressed in costumes and bemusing titular inanities”.

According to the ASUU boss, traditional rulers in Nigeria look away while their people suffer while religious leaders have become “chattered prophets, prayer contractors, ministers of their bellies and priests of violence.”

Akinwole lashed out at the current Buhari administration whose anti-workers policy he claimed has “made Nigerian workers poorer. There is an increasing rise in the prices of commodities and services.

“This administration has failed Nigerians in the following ways: Non-implementation of minimum wage policy of the government by all the states; Inappropriate payment platform of salary which denies workers the opportunity to plan for the future; Embargo on employment in federal Universities has turned workers to slaves; workers have become hopeless because there is no succession plan; High level of insecurity has negatively affected the safety of life and properties; Political instability in Nigeria – more than ever before this government polarized the country along with religion and ethnicity; Citizenship in the Nigerian state has been compromised due to the wrong attitude of the government that does not see the need to promote integration; the current administration cannot unite the country and provide a needed forum for the future, and Our youth have become negatively aggressive and have given in to moral lapses.”

Describing the current administration as a failure, Profesor Akinwole said “Nigerian people have been abandoned to the elements, to bandits and terrorists, to disease and scarcity. They are fed with words on empty stomachs and are nourished with promises that are never kept. Excuses are the strong points of policymakers and the past is waved in their worker’s faces to justify the failures of the present. The future is being ravaged daily by a political class, knowing what they have done; fear that the country is at the last throes of death.”

The ASUU chairman then saluted the courage of Nigerian workers to dare the odds and survive under the precarious conditions under this administration saying “on this day, we observe moments of silence for the Nigerian people and workers who have been victims of terrorism and brutality of the ruling administration. We stand still for women and girls who are victims of rape and sexual enslavement. Today, we remember the thousands of Nigerians who have been buried in mass and unmarked graves, with no opportunity by family and loved ones to bid them farewell; we share the grief of parents who are in mourning over their dead and missing children. It is sad to note that in the face of the enduring grief and hopelessness of Nigerians, the political class is in a frenzy of political carnivals. God shall indeed judge the wicked.”