The Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) has condemned the statement credited to Senate President, David Mark deriding the personality of the leader of Government negotiation delegation with ASUU, Deacon Gamaliel Onosode.

The chairman of the ASUU of the University of Ibadan, Dr Olusegun Ajiboye said in Ibadan on Sunday that this was part of the resolutions taken at the end of the congress of the union held within the premier university last Friday on the state of the ongoing strike.

The union asked the senate leader to tender an unreserved apology to the leader of the government delegation in 2009, Deacon Gamaliel Onosode, saying the elder statesman ‘deserved respect as a man of proven integrity, and impeccable character ‘It called on the Senate to be alive and sensitive to what is happening to the masses and teach the youth the sanctity of obeying agreement adding that President Goodluck Jonathan as the then Vice president instructed the government team to sign the agreement.

The senate President, David Mark was reported as saying: “For those who negotiated on behalf of the federal government with ASUU in October 2009, the facts made available to us today by the chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, Uche Chukwumeje, showed that they are people who do not know their right from their left and, in the process, put the federal government into the problem it is facing today, because when the agreements were read out I thought they were mere proposals, only for Chukwumereje to confirm that they signed the largely un-implementable agreements characterized by payment of  all manner of allowances.”It lashed out at the Senate President for acting out ignorantly on the true position of the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement even as a sitting senate president at the time.

According to ASUU, the vituperation of the senate president shows the character of those leading us as unpatriotic and foreign to happenings within the country. It wondered if the senate president was sleeping when the National Assembly passed a bill approving the retirement age of university professors from 65 to 70 years which is a component of the 2009 agreement.

ASUU further bemoaned Senator David Mark for describing the agreement has largely un-implementable challenging the senate president to publish his salaries and allowances to Nigerians.“The Congress considered the personality of Deacon Gamaliel Onosode, an alumnus of the University College Ibadan, who has served as the Chairman of Governing councils of UI and UNILAG, a great successful businessman who has served the country in various intervention capacities." The congress condemns these disparaging comments and demands that the Senate President apologizes to this elder statesman," it added.