April 01, 2003
Unending ASUU Strike!
OurRights appears every Tuesday or Thursday in ThisDay newspaper.
Across the Nation, innocent Nigerian students in our institutions of higher learning have once again been compelled to stay at home indefinitely because their lecturers are on strike.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), have been on an indefinite industrial action for about 3 months, protesting amongst other things, dilapidating infrastructures in the campuses, non payment of research allowances to University dons, the recall of 49 sacked lecturers of the University of Ilorin to the University, etc.
The ongoing ASUU strike has without doubt left its toll on Nigerian youths who should ordinarily be in school at this time - wasted years and disrupted school calendars are the unenviable results of schooling in Nigeria.
In addition to wasting material resources, it seems the government is also bent on wasting viable human resources by its inability or unwillingness to end the impasse between it and ASUU. This present strike has gone on for more than 2 months and the state of affairs in our institutions of higher learning goes a long way to depict everything that is wrong with Nigeria.
Corruption is at all time high and resources that should be utilised to keep our tertiary institutions, oil industries and such other important and viable institutions of development moving are finding their way into the ‘pockets’ and bank accounts of a few Nigerians, who interestingly do not send their children to Universities in Nigeria.
CRP is calling on the Government and ASUU to find all available means to bring this impasse to an immediate end.
CRP hopes that the Nigerian government would become more responsive to the needs of the educational sector. ASUU, on its part should be less rigid in its demands and put national interest above all else. It is shameful that almost every year, ASUU has to go on strike because of one financial disagreement or the other with government.
In the near future, some of these situations should prepare Nigerians better when making decisions on persons to elect into public offices. Nigeria’s educational system as indeed all other systems in the country need stability and growth at this time and ASUU and the federal government should ensure that the ongoing strike comes to an end so that our youths - the “future of tomorrow” can continue unhindered to work towards nation building..
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