By Kazeem Waris
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, and the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic, SADR, have renewed their commitment to the campaign for the decolonisation of Africa, with the union pledging continued support for Western Sahara’s struggle for self-determination.
The commitment was made when the SADR Ambassador to Nigeria, Brahim Salem Buseif, visited the ASUU National Secretariat in Abuja, where he met with the union’s leadership and members of its National Executive Council.
Buseif used the meeting to brief ASUU on what he described as fresh moves to persuade the United Nations Security Council to endorse an “Autonomy Plan” that would place Western Sahara under the Moroccan monarchy.
He said the Saharawi people would not accept any arrangement that amounted to what he described as “subjugation under another guise.”
The ambassador commended ASUU for what he described as its decades-long solidarity with the Saharawi people and its campaign against what the union regards as Moroccan occupation of parts of Western Sahara.
He specifically acknowledged the union’s scholarship support for Saharawi youths who, according to him, had been denied access to education, describing the initiative as an important contribution to the development of the human resources needed for the territory’s future.
Buseif also recognised ASUU, alongside the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, and the Nigerian Civil Society Coalition, as foundation partners of the Nigerian Movement for the Liberation of Western Sahara.
He expressed appreciation to successive Nigerian governments for supporting the Saharawi people’s right to determine their political future, while commending the African Union for maintaining its support for the liberation of Africa.
Responding, ASUU President, Prof. Chris Piwuna, said the union’s opposition to colonialism remained a core principle of the organisation, stressing that its solidarity extended to situations involving African countries.
Piwuna said ASUU would not abandon its support for Western Sahara, adding that the union would sustain its scholarship programme for Saharawi youths as part of efforts to develop an educated workforce for the territory.
“ASUU’s age-old solidarity with Western Sahara remains unshaken,” Piwuna said.
The ASUU president also reaffirmed the union’s call for a boycott of goods from Morocco, the European Union and other parts of the world where such products were made using resources from Western Sahara without the consent of the Saharawi people.
Piwuna, who spoke in the presence of six former presidents of ASUU, said Nigerian intellectuals would continue to work with progressive forces against policies they considered detrimental to the interests of African peoples.
The meeting ended with ASUU and the SADR reaffirming their commitment to what they described as the total decolonisation and liberation of Africa.
