Professor of soil science at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture in Umudike and national president of Academic Staff Union of Universities, Emmanuel Victor Osodeke is a Nigerian. During the previous term, he was the union’s vice president.
The 14th Ralph Opara Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke, President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on Friday, February 3 at the University of Benin in Benin, Edo State.
State of Tertiary Education in Nigeria: Identifying Historical Issues and Misconceptions; Contemplating Solutions is the subject of Prof. Osodeke’s speech.
The National Association of Seadogs (Pyrates Confraternity) created the lecture to honor Ralph Opara, one of its founders and a talented writer, producer, and broadcaster.
The Ralph Opara Memorial Lecture series, according to the NAS Capoon, Mr. Abiola Owoaje, has become a legitimate forum for debating current national and international issues, encouraging and promoting good governance, accountability, democracy, public involvement, and economic development.
He said that previous Ralph Opara Memorial Lecture presenters have included Dr. Hussani Abdu, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, Dr. Sam Amadi, and Prof. Ukachukwu Awuzie, a former ASUU President.
The unsettling decadence that permeates Nigeria’s higher education institutions, in Owoaje’s opinion, is what inspired this year’s talk on tertiary education.
According to him, “we are worried that our higher institutions have lost significant value as citadels of learning due to poor funding, lack of infrastructure, and adequate educational and recreational facilities, while becoming a breeding ground for gangsterism, violence, and criminality,” as an organization founded on a university campus that exclusively draws its membership from the intellectual pool of university and polytechnic graduates.
He emphasized that the lecture aims to address the complex issues facing Nigeria’s higher education institutions, including the need for infrastructure development, the menace of cultism, and the Nigerian government’s ongoing disregard for the expansion of higher education in the nation.
He revealed that Prof. Temi Akporhonor, the dean of the postgraduate school at Delta State University in Abraka, Delta State, will preside over the event, and that Dr. Joan Oviawe, the honorable commissioner for education in Edo State, Dr. Osagie Obayuwana, the former attorney general and commissioner for justice in Edo State, and Prof. Samuel Ovenseri Aibueku, the former director of the Joint Universities Preliminary
The Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), the Non-Academic Staff Union of Allied and Education Institutions (NASU), ASUU members, university administrators, students from tertiary institutions, civil society organizations, and the media are anticipated to attend the event.
Withheld salary’ll be paid, ASUU President assures members
As a result of the Federal Government’s no-work, no-pay policy, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) President Emmanuel Osodeke has guaranteed members that their eight months’ worth of delayed salary arrears will be reimbursed.
The promises were given by Osodeke to ASUU members yesterday in Nsukka at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), during the branch’s seminar and the laying of the cornerstone for the UNN-ASUU Branch Secretariat Complex.
He declared that the union’s National Executive Council (NEC) will not budge until all member salary arrears were paid in full and their demands were satisfied. But he cautioned the group to brace themselves for additional conflict.
Because they are uneasy with the fact that ASUU is unified and always speaks with a single voice, the government and their operatives have continued to foment trouble and tried to disrupt the organization.
“I am relieved that the government’s attempts to sow division within ASUU in order to delay paying the withheld salaries were all unsuccessful.
He continued, “We are employing all legal methods to achieve this, and for that reason I am telling you that your eight months’ delayed pay will be reimbursed very soon.”
Speaking on the seminar’s theme, “The Strength of the Union and Its Values,” Prof. Nasir Fagge, who served as ASUU’s national president from 2012 to 2016, advised members to comprehend the organization’s guiding principles, which he claimed were what kept the union strong in all situations.