The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), has urged the public to disregard a recent viral video against UNN-ASUU by a Nollywood man.
This is contained in a statement issued in Nsukka on Wednesday signed by Comrade Christian Opata and Comrade Michael Nwokedi, Chairman and Secretary of ASUU-UNN, respectively.
The statement said the attention of the union had been drawn to a recent viral video credited to one Mr. Williams Uchemba a Nollywood actor and an alumnus of UNN.
In it, Uchemba claimed that UNN lecturers were demanding assistance from him as they could no longer feed themselves and their families because of the ongoing nationwide strike by ASUU.
“The attention of the leadership of ASUU-UNN has been drawn to a 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.
The statement said the maker of the video claimed that the help arose from requests by lecturers in the branch.
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However, when the leadership of the branch got in touch with Uchemba he apologized and went ahead to put up a written apology and posted the same on social media.
“UNN-ASUU has a welfare scheme for cushioning the effects of the withheld salaries of our members and the majority of members who applied for help under the scheme received the 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 at the same time as 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 a reaction from Uchemba was unsuccessful, as both calls and text message sent to his cellphone were not replied to as of the time of filing this report.
