Mark's comment ridicules Onosode's pedigree, says ASUU
The Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities, University of Ibadan chapter, has condemned the statement of Senate President David Mark on the competence of those who negotiated the 2009 agreement with ASUU on behalf of the Federal Government.
The union said the Senate President's remarks ridiculed the leader of the Federal Government's team, Deacon Gamaliel Onosode.
It therefore demanded an apology for Onosode.
Mark had last Wednesday derided the government's negotiators, saying ASUU took advantage of their ignorance.
'They (ASUU) found that those who were sent there (government negotiating team led by Onosode) simply didn't know their right from their left,' the Senate President had said when the strike by ASUU came up for debate on the floor of the senate.
At the end of a congress held at UI on Friday, the chapter chairman of ASUU, Dr. Olusegun Ajiboye, asked Mark to tender an apology to Onosode, saying the elder statesman deserved respect from Nigerians.
He said, 'Onosode is a man of proven integrity, and impeccable character. He deserves better than the colour painted of him by the Senate President. The Congress respects the personality of Onosode, an alumnus of the University College Ibadan, who has served as the Chairman of governing councils of UI and University of Lagos and a 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? We challenge the Revenue Allocation, Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission to publish salaries and allowance of the senate president for Nigerians to see how patriotic he is to the true state of the economy.'
Ajiboye also asked the upper legislative house to be alive and sensitive to national issues, saying President Goodluck Jonathan, who was then the Vice President when the agreement with ASUU was signed, instructed the government team to sign the agreement.
He also said that Mark's statement smirked of disbelief about his knowledge of national issues as he was already the head of the senate when the agreement was signed.