The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) chapter, has described claim by Nollywood actor, Williams Uchemba, that its members were demanding assistance from him because they could no longer feed themselves and their families because of their ongoing nationwide strike as false.
“The union is not aware of any such plea as ASUU-UNN has a welfare scheme for cushioning the effect of the prolonged strike for members,” the statement Comrade Christian Opata and Comrade Michael Nwokedi, Chairman and Secretary of ASUU-UNN, respectively said in the statement.
ASUU added that when the leadership of the branch got in touch with Uchemba he apologised and went ahead to put up a written apology and posted same in social media.
The statement reads: “The attention of leadership of ASUU-UNN has been drawn to video credited to Uchemba, saying lecturers are soliciting support from the general public through him, to help feed themselves and their families.
“The union is not aware of any such plea as ASUU-UNN has a welfare scheme for cushioning the effect of the prolonged strike for members,” the statement said.
“UNN-ASUU has welfare scheme for cushioning the effects of the withheld salaries of our members and majority of members who applied for help under the scheme received money.
“This welfare for our members is not limited to feeding alone but payment of health bills , school fees of children, house rent among others,” the statement noted.
The statement, however, expressed concern that Uchemba’s viral video came the same time when President Muhammadu Buhari’s ill-informed recent threat to ASUU of ‘Enough is enough.’
“We suspect that this may be one of the antics of government to break the ranks of ASUU,” the statement added.
Meanwhile, efforts to get reaction from Uchemba was unsuccessful, as both calls and text message sent to his cellphone were not replied as of the time of filing this report.
(NAN)
