Nnamdi Azikiwe University ASUU Factions Lock Horns Over Suit

A recent legal suit against the administration of the Vice Chancellor of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) by a faction of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) led by the executive of the body led by Prof Ike Odimegwu without due consultation with its members has balkanized the union.

However ASUU leadership under Odimegwu told journalists yesterday that they made wide and urgent consultations as allowed by the constitution of ASUU. That they even had an emergency executive committee meeting and contacted the national headquarters of the body and got their approval and permission before embarking on the law suit.

According to him, "in every organization, the elected executive by virtue of its elected mandate take some urgent decisions and actions on behalf of the body or they will be swallowed up by emergencies. The action that necessitated our court action came up during the university's sessional exams and in an effort to avoid disrutption of the exams, the executive of the union then took the emergency move to save the day, after due consultations.

"Anyone trying to opt out of our actions at this time is merely attempting to arrogate undue powers to himself or themselves, Prof Odimegwu noted.

He poited out that the kernel of the matter was that the Vice Chancellor appointed some persons who in their views were not supposed to sit in the Senate of the University. So they went to court to have the action reversed.

Reacting bitterly over the suit yesterday in a press briefing at the main auditorium of the Post- Graduate School, a faction which called itself "The UNIZIK ASUU Progressives"

Said that the Prof Odimegwu acted against their briefs and mandate by going to court on a serious issue as that without first calling a congress of the ASUU to seek their approval.

But in a 3-page written brief read to journalists by Prof Maduabuchi Dukor and signed by himself, Profs E.O Akusoba, Ken Nwogu and Edmund Egboh, stated that the matter was a purely union matter that do not concern the VC or the University authority at all. Prof Egboh said that any attempt to drag the VC into the issue was an effort to demean the institution.

Prof Nwogu, who is the immediate past Dean, Faculty of Law, said they were not satisfied by the way ASUU was being run or the way the members were being dragged into a legal action they never authorized or permission sought from them at all. He said that they would not comment on the matter as it is already before the court.

The protem chairman of the faction, Prof Dukor said, "ASUU is a legal body and we disagree with those who want to use us as cannon fodders. We therefore call for objectivity…"