The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has again declared that it has withdrawn official participation from elections in Nigeria insisting that members participating are doing so out of their own volition.
Explaining reasons for the withdrawal, ASUU said elections in the country is flawed.
The organisation said it had requested that it should be allowed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to participate in all the segments of the election, from the polling unit, collation and announcement for which government refused.
The President of ASUU, Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke revealed this in an interview The Punch Newspapers.
He said, “ASUU participated (in election) during the period of (Prof. Attahiru) Jega and since then, we have decided we are not participating as a union in any election process because it is fraudulent.
“We requested that they should allow us participate in all the segments of the election, from the polling booth, to the collation to announcement. But they refused and so we withdrew from it as a union.
“And in the last (2019) election, we were very clear; we announced openly that we are not participating in 2019 election that any of our member who is going, is going as a person, not as an ASUU member which they are entitled to.
“So (in 2023), we are not going to tell our members anything. Anyone who wants to go is doing so on his own. When you are going, don’t wear anything that has ASUU signal, either its name or anything. You are going as a person; you are not going because you are a member of ASUU.
“During Jega (era), he asked us to nominate, which we did. Although at the upper collation level, we were able to control it, at the polling booth where they do the rigging, we were not allowed access to it, so we left.”
According to Osodeke the Vice Chancellors who took part as Returning Officers in elections have no influence but to announce results which have allegedly been written.
