ASUU Slams David Mark Over Onosode Comments, Asks Him To Make His Salary Public

University
of Ibadan
chapter of
the
Academic
Staff
Union of
Universities,
ASUU,
has asked the Senate President, David Mark to
apologise to the leader of Government negotiation
with ASUU, Deacon Gamaliel Onosode over alleged
disparaging comments.
This formed part of the resolutions of the union at
the end of a congress in the institution, weekend,
signed by the chairman of the ASUU at the
university, Dr. Olusegun Ajiboye.
According to him, instead of the senator
condemning the leader of the government delegation
in 2009, the elder statesman “deserved respect as
a man of proven integrity, and impeccable
character,” because of his pedigree.
While advising the Senate to be concerned with the
plight of Nigerian masses and teach youths the
sanctity of obeying agreements, the union recalled
that President Goodluck Jonathan as the then Vice
President had instructed the government team to
sign the agreement.
Following discussion on the details of the
agreement on the floor of the Senate, Mark was
quoted to have said: “For those who negotiated on
behalf of the Federal Government with ASUU in
October 2009, the facts made available to us today
by the chairman of the Senate Committee on
Education, Uche Chukwumerije, showed that they
are people who do not know their right from their
left and, in the process, put the Federal Government
into the problem it is facing today, because when
the agreements were read out, I thought they were
mere proposals, only for Chukwumerije to confirm
that they signed the largely unimplementable
agreements characterised by payment of all
manner of allowances.”
The union alleged that Senate President acted
ignorantly on the true position of the 2009 FGN/
ASUU agreement even as a sitting Senate President
at the time.
“The vituperation of the Senate President shows the
character of those leading us as unpatriotic and
foreign to happenings within the country”.
The union further challenged the senate president to
publish his salaries and allowances to Nigerians.
“The Congress considered the personality of
Deacon Gamaliel Onosode, an alumnus of the
University College Ibadan, who has served as the
Chairman of Governing councils of UI and UNILAG, a
great successful businessman who has served the
country in various intervention capacities. The
congress condemns these disparaging comments
and demands that the Senate President apologises
to this elder statesman.
“Can we actually trust these characters to midwife
any intervention with a bias and myopic
construction myth makes right? Where else in the
world are senators earning bogus allowances as
we have in the National Assembly? Salaries of
University lecturers have been by NUC, we
challenge the Revenue Allocation, Mobilisation and
Fiscal commission to publish salaries and allowance
of the senate president David Mark for Nigerians to
see how patriotic he is to the true state of the
economy,” the UI chapter of the union said.