The Academic Staff Union of Universities has announced it will not be participating in the forthcoming 2023 elections as a body.
This was revealed by the ASUU President, Prof.Emmanuel Osodeke, during an interview with Punch.
The Union also distanced itself from members who will take part in the elections in any capacity, saying such lecturers do so in their own rights as individuals and not as ASUU members.
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Prof Osodeke said the union has since withdrawn from participating in elections in the country due to the flawed nature of the system.
He revealed that the union was denied full participation in the electioneering process by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.He listed areas the government denied ASUU full participation to include polling units, vote collation and result announcement.
Osodeke lamented that Vice Chancellors who served as Returning Officers in previous elections only announced already-written results.
He said; “ASUU participated (in election) during the period of (Prof. Attahiru) Jega and since then, we have decided we are not participating as a union in any election process because it is fraudulent.
“We requested that they should allow us participate in all the segments of the election, from the polling booth, to the collation to announcement. But they refused and so we withdrew from it as a union.
“And in the last (2019) election, we were very clear; we announced openly that we are not participating in 2019 election that any of our member who is going, is going as a person, not as an ASUU member which they are entitled to.
“So (in 2023), we are not going to tell our members anything. Anyone who wants to go is doing so on his own. When you are going, don’t wear anything that has ASUU signal, either its name or anything. You are going as a person; you are not going because you are a member of ASUU.
“During Jega (era), he asked us to nominate, which we did. Although at the upper collation level, we were able to control it, at the polling booth where they do the rigging, we were not allowed access to it, so we left.”
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