Lorine Emenike
Some students of the University of Port Harcourt disrupted an emergency meeting by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, in the school.
The students carried placards and invaded the conference hall of the ASUU secretariat chanting solidarity songs.
The situation forced the ASUU members to relocated their meeting to a hotel near the University campus.
Addressing journalists at the hotel, ASUU Chairman in UNIPORT, Dr Austin Sado accused the Vice-Chancellor of the institution, Ndowa Lale of sponsoring the students to disrupt their meeting.
He, however, revealed that one of the reasons for the faceoff between the union and the school management is the battle over the termination of the appointment of Professor Frank Ugiomoh of the Department of Fine Arts and Design since 2017.
He said the allegations of “meddlesomeness in the affairs of the Department” levelled against the Professor, which led to his sack in 2018 is vague and that due process was not followed.
ASUU also accused the Vice-Chancellor of rejecting the nominee of the union on the board of the budget monitoring committee of the university.
The Uniport ASUU chairman, however, said they are not threatened by the existence of a parallel academic union called CONUA which was inaugurated in the university yesterday.
On the controversial IPPIS, Dr Sado said ASUU had agreed with the Accountant General of the Federation to create its own platform to maintain the autonomy of the universities
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Details Later.
