Tunbosun Ogundare
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has advised the various vice-chancellors and other academic staff, who have been engaged by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for electoral duties during this weekend and other general elections not to wear any item that is branded with the name of the union or its logo to the election grounds in any part of the country.
The National President of the union, Prof Emmanuel Osodeke advised in an exclusive interview with Nigerian Tribune when he was asked if ASUU as a body would be involved in the electoral duties during the election and its level of preparedness.
He declared that ASUU as a body had no pact or agreement whatsoever with INEC concerning the election and since that is the situation, vice-chancellors and other academic staff, who have agreed to participate as electoral or returning officers are going there of their volition, which he said they are entitled to.
Osodeke explained that it was not as if ASUU as a union had not been contacted formally by INEC in the past to submit names of members to perform the role of returning officers during general elections but that INEC has consistently failed to yield to its terms and conditions for such participation.
According to him, INEC approaching ASUU for electoral duties started with Professor Attahiru Jega when he was the chairman of INEC.
“He invited ASUU to participate in the electoral processes which we accepted. He asked us to nominate who would participate in the process and we did. And when we completed the template of the processes, we found out there were flaws in the arrangement.
“So we set up a committee to look at the whole situation of things and give recommendations on possible ways out.
“Our committee recommendations were presented to INEC as our terms and conditions to participate.”
He explained that the condition is for INEC to allow ASUU nominees to be involved in every facet of the election starting from the polling units to wards and local government level and then to the state and national level if it is a presidential election.
“Doing so, we believe, will enable us to know how people cast their votes and how those votes are counted and recorded at all levels.
“And by that, we will know that any result that is announced at any level and the eventual winner of the election from among the candidates is the true reflection of peoples’ will.
“That is what we want. We don’t want to be a party to the arrangement where our role will only be at the final collation centres to announce the total results and the winner of the election that we were not involved in where it matters most.
“We know that whoever serves as returning officer for example and announces results that have been compromised at one level or the other to favour a particular candidate will be blamed for his or her action and not the system that produced the results.
“But INEC didn’t agree with us on that arrangement and then we back out and asked our members, particularly the leadership to stay away from INEC’s job.
“Since then, we know that whoever takes up the role as an individual has the right to do so but on personal ground.
“And that is why ASUU would not want any VC or academic staff who are going for electoral duties to wear cloth or cap that bears the name of ASUU because they are on their own.”
Osodeke said it was based on this principle that ASUU usually keeps mum whenever anything goes wrong with any of the vice-chancellor or academic staff, who has been found wanting over his or her role during one election or the other.
“And we are still standing on this principle of our full participation as a union from the polling units through to the central collation centres till today,” he stressed.
When asked about the preferred presidential candidate to win the coming election, he said Nigerians at large would decide that on Saturday.
ALSO READ FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
