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By Gabriel Dike, Fred Ezeh (Abuja), Joseph Obukata (Warri), Okey Sampson (Umuahia), Felix Ikem (Nsukka) and Lateef Dada (Osogbo)
This is certainly not the best of times for the Nigerian Universities System (NUS). Academic activities have been grounded in public universities nationwide due to a strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).
On February 14, 2022, ASUU declared a one-month strike. Academic activities were crippled and students were sent home. Campuses became ghost towns.
But did the two-month strike extension come as a surprise to parents, students and the Federal Government? For the parents and students, Yes.
Parents had expected ASUU members would go back to the classroom. For government, having not met the demands of the lecturers, they would be wrong to think ASUU would not roll over the strike.
After an emergency National Executive Council (NEC) meeting in Abuja, the union announced the rollover of the industrial action to two months. The decision elicited mixed reactions.
NANS gives ultimatum
National president, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Sunday Asefon, told The Education Report: “We have mentioned it before that at the end of this issue between the Federal Government and ASUU, both parties are paid their salaries, allowances and other entitlements. But nothing is added to the students except pains and losses.
“But this time, we are ready for them. We, I mean the National Executive Committee (NEC), agreed a few days ago, that if both parties fail to reach compromise on or before Monday, March 28, 2022, we would shut down the country in protest.
“We would resume at the new university created by the Federal Government and ASUU, called ‘The University of the Street’, with main campus on the Airport Road, Abuja; annex campuses in all the major roads in Abuja and distance learning centres in all the federal roads across the 36 states of the federation.
“Besides, students have been directed to bring along their mattresses and cooking utensils, while resuming in their new campus in Abuja and all the designated campuses across the country. There won’t be any going back this time because it’s obvious that only what all the parties understand is unfriendly action.”
He linked the poor academic standards and the issue of “half baked” graduates to the periodic academic interruptions due to strike by ASUU.
National president, Parent-Teacher Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN), Alhaji Haruna Danjumaa, called on ASUU and representatives of the Federal Government to go back to dialogue: “The strike comes amid increase in prices of foodstuffs, high cost of petroleum and general insecurity challenges bedevilling peace, stability in the country.”
He appealed to ASUU to have a rethink, while calling on the Federal Government to attend to their demands, to save the students from wasting more time at home: “Not all parents can afford to send their children abroad or to private universities, hence the need for both government and ASUU to do the needful.”
A student of University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Enugu State, Ifeoma Okolo, said: “This is my third year in UNN. I have had my good share of this experience. I am considering the option of abandoning UNN and switching to private university to start afresh. I have wasted enough time in this school and no one knows when it will end.
“My friends in private universities have finished their programmes and are getting ready for NYSC. While we were at home for several months in 2020, their session was on. Now, we are back to this unending ASUU strike. I am in serious discussion with my parents so I can ‘port’ to a private university because this is a hopeless situation.”
A parent, Mr. Kelechi Odo, said his son has overstayed his time at the University of Abuja (UNIABUJA): “For instance, he couldn’t get accommodation in any of the hostels so he lives in a private apartment. On several occasions, he has collected money from me for rent, and it ended up wasting because of prolonged ASUU strike.
“He has had his fair share of the experience. I regret not enrolling him in a private university. It wouldn’t have been easy for me, but God would have seen me through. His friends have finished in private universities. Some are already doing their NYSC, while some others are getting ready for the next batch.”
Another parent, Chief Lateef Balogun, said: “You can quote me right. Whenever ASUU declares strike, they go to private institutions to lecture. Children of government officials and ASUU members are not in public universities. That is why both are not bothered about the situation.”
A 400-level Law student in a public university in Rivers State, Donald Amadi, said the strike was uncalled for. He urged government not to pay the lecturers for the duration of the industrial action because they didn’t work for the period. He accused the lecturers of disrupting academic activities in public universities but that they find their way to private institutions to do private practice: “Even during normal time, some of them hardly come to lectures.
“They appear from nowhere to administer exams they never taught the students. During strike, you hardly see any of them on campus, they have gone for their businesses, while students in public universities suffer for no reason.”
Human rights lawyer, Oghenejabor Ikimi, said: “ASUU has repeatedly given the government time but they keep reneging. You have a Federal Government that doesn’t keep promises but they keep taking loans. You have large executive, high cost of administration, yet they can’t honour agreement to pay university teachers.
“We have a government that’s not sincere, a government that’s defrauding the people; what do you expect? The youths will begin to lose interest in the government. Many of the youths I spoke to recently don’t even want to go for youth service (NYSC) because, why are they serving the country that can’t guarantee them security?
“There is insecurity everywhere, the allowance the government is paying is peanuts whereas the politicians are carting away billions of naira and they are paying them stipends! They are also paying university lecturers peanuts.
“As it is now, the youth of this country don’t have a future. If we are in a country where the youths have a future, government will not be playing with university education.
“So, that’s the implication of where we are heading. We are heading to a very dangerous situation. I don’t think it is not only prayers that will solve these problems because these are man-made problems.
“The government has mortgaged the future of our youths. We must rise up against this ‘yahoo government’ that’s scamming the people.”
Becky, student, Delta State University, Abraka, said: “Government is frustrating us with persistent crises with ASUU. The negative cost implication of the strike may outweigh the goal the industrial action seeks to achieve.”
In Abia State, a parent, Chief Ijioma Eke, said, in as much he was not in support of the Federal Government not acceding to the demands of ASUU, he was of the view that the strike shouldn’t have been extended because of the cost implication to parents.
He lamented that he spent thousands of naira a few months ago to get his daughter who gained admission in one of the federal universities in the South-South back to school, only for her to be asked to go home as a result of the strike.
“The worst aspect of it was that the students could not finish their first semester examinations before they were asked to go,” he said.
A student, Chinyere Kalu, expressed worry that she came back home as a result of the ASUU strike, less than three month after she went to school for the first semester: “I was thinking that, after the COVID-19 lockdown and the ASUU strike, which subsequently followed, we would have uninterrupted academic session this time around, but here we are now, staying at home again when we were supposed to be in school.”
She was worried that the strike would affect the academic calendar and elongate her stay in the university. She called on government and ASUU to find common ground and end the strike, to enable students go back to school.
Leonard Patience, a 300-level Mass Communication student, UNN, said: “March 16, 2022, made it four years I got matriculated into UNN to study Mass Communications.
“My course, it is a four-year programme, but look at where I and my classmates are today. We are still in third year because of ASUU’s interruption to the academic calendar. Yet we are not even sure when we will round off the second semester of our third year, given the uncertain future of public universities in the country these days.
“The situation is disturbing, discouraging and frustrating. Currently no industrial training, no lectures, no exams, we are just static. Imagine all the students roaming around the streets doing nothing.
“This is why some of them have been exposed to dangers, because an idle mind they say is a devil’s workshop. Honestly, Federal Government and ASUU are toying with our future.”
Mrs Ukamaka Ani, a parent whose daughter, Chinemerem, is a 200 level in Department of Medical Laboratory and Radiography, UNN, lamented: “My daughter is living off-campus. What the rollover strike means is that we have to get ready to pay for her accommodation double under one a academic calendar.
“Again, staying at home for three months doing nothing is dangerous for students because if you keep you eyes off them they might be influenced negatively by others in the neighbourhood.” She appealed to Federal Government and ASUU to sheath their swords and resolve their differences.
Alofe Opeyemi, student, Department of English and Literary Studies, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, said: “I am confused on the next line of action. I am in my final year and since we resumed, I have just been having two classes out of five registered courses one of which has stopped and the other has switched to online mode.
“I don’t have a project supervisor yet. Some of my mates in private universities have finished and many of them waiting to be called by NYSC.”
A parent, Bamidele Ojo, said, “The house rent I paid in Ekiti for my children in Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), is counting and a year will soon complete when we would be asked to pay for another year even if the strike did not end.
“They have been eating and we must continue sending money to them hoping that the strike would be called off. If we ask them to come home, it is another financial cost because we have to send transport fares to them and they come home to be eating.”
