2027: ASUU Disowns Northern Lecturers’ Endorsement Of Tinubu, Says We Are Apolitical, Will Never Endorse Any Candidate

The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has disowned the endorsement of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu by over 600 senior academics from Northern Nigeria ahead of the 2027 presidential election.

ASUU President, Prof. Chris Piwuna, in a swift response on Sunday night to daily trust, described the endorsement as misleading and said the union retains its age-long apolitical position.

The reaction followed a closed-door stakeholders’ engagement convened by the Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Ibrahim Masari, at the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Kaduna, where more than 600 senior academics drawn from public universities in the 19 Northern states resolved to support the re-election of President Tinubu.

The academics, in a communiqué read by the Vice Chancellor of Kaduna State University, Prof Abdullahi Ibrahim Musa, said: “We resolved to express our support for the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, in the 2027 presidential election.”

But ASUU said the union cannot be dragged into partisan politics.

Prof. Piwuna explained that members of the union are free to belong to different political parties in line with the constitution if they choose, but must do so in an individual capacity.

“We will never take such positions, going by our constitution. They cannot mention ASUU. Nobody can mention ASUU in that context because we’re apolitical. Our members can belong to any political party that they want.

“They can do whatever they want to do under the law. We have never, and we will never endorse any political party candidate. Nobody should drag us into such things,” he said.

The ASUU president also cautioned some of its members not to drag the union into the controversy of endorsement, insisting that the union remains apolitical in all its dealings.

He said, “Neither our members nor our comrades should drag us into that controversy. We have never done it and we will never do it. We’re apolitical and we retain that apolitical position.

“It is the same mistake people make when lecturers go to participate in electoral duties and they will say ASUU members are participating in electoral duties. It is misleading.

“It is misleading because ASUU has not sent anybody outside to participate in the electoral duties or serve as electoral officers. You can imagine heads of institutions like vice-chancellors that are always fighting us on campus; when they go out and do something, they will say they are our members. Meanwhile, these are the people fighting the union. We don’t endorse candidates of political parties.”

The Kaduna meeting, which had as theme “Consolidating the Renewed Hope Agenda: Three Years of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Achievements and the Road to 2027,” was attended by Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani, Zamfara Governor Dauda Lawal, Yobe Governor Mai Mala Buni, Borno Governor Babagana Zulum, Gombe Governor Inuwa Yahaya, Minister of State for Defence Bello Matawalle and others.

The invitation letter sighted by Daily Trust showed that the objective was to “secure the endorsement and active support of the academic community for the re-election of Mr President,” adding that “the purpose of the gathering is therefore not open-ended debate but mobilisation.”