The Academic Staff  Union of Universities (ASUU) on Tuesday rejected call by the Primate of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, Most Reverend Nicholas Okoh, that the union be banned.

The union which lambasted the cleric over his call, described it as “ungodly and unholy”.The Chairman of the University of Ibadan chapter of the Union, Dr Olusegun Ajiboye in a statement titled "Primate Okoh Goofed", ASUU expressed surprise at the compromising comment credited to the Anglican Bishop.

It said such utterances was least expected from "a religious leader who is supposed to integrate warring factions and not aggravate conflict.

"Primate Okoh has demonstrated the greatest ignorance about the numerous

achievements recorded by the academic union saying Nigeria universities would have totally collapse without the constant agitation of the union," it added.

Primate Okoh spoke last Thursday in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, during the Standing Committee Meeting of the Bishops Conference of the church. Okoh, “The government should find a way either to privatise the universities or get ASUU to be limited to individual universities such that there will be no national ASUU body mandating even institutions without grievances to go on strike.“There is no such body anywhere in the world. Challenges facing any institution should be treated locally without involving others." he said.

According to the cleric, while the ASUU strike lasts, university lecturers are busy teaching in private universities (most of which lack lecturers) and earning money and when the strike is over, they will still be paid for the period of the strike. “This is highly immoral and must be discouraged.

But ASUU said :“the Primate has demonstrated the greatest ignorance about the Union and the numerous achievements the union has recorded in repositioning Nigeria universities in the past. "As a revered man of God it is expected that he should guard his mouth and not to allow his mouth to run diarrhoea on issues as important as Education that concerns the teeming youths of our country. Primate Okoh should stop playing politics with ASUU, it said.

ASUU urged the cleric to face the work of his ministry and get busy with it if he cannot be part of the solution to the logjam created by the Nigerian government in the education sector. It added that the statement credited to Okoh was his personal view that did not represent the opinions of the responsible men and women in the Anglican Communion who believe that Nigerian youths deserve the best education like all other youths around the globe. " It is laughable that while the Bishops of the Catholic Church are calling for a truce and trying to mediate in the ongoing crisis, Okoh is dancing a naked dance in Otuoke to please his benefactor President," it added.

While noting that People like Primate Okoh were encouraging corruption in Nigeria, ASUU said "only a callous person will advocate the privatization of public universities when the private universities run by churches are attended only by children of the rich while the poor majority in the church struggle for public universities.“What is more immoral than a university owned by most churches lying that they have lecturers they don’t have to get NUC accreditation? "ASUU agreement is not immoral and we are determined to get this agreement implemented. People like Primate Okoh are anti-masses and we don’t want them around us,” it said.