Tuesday last week marked exactly 100 days that the Academic Staff Union
of Universities (ASUU) began an indefinite strike that has shut down all
the public universities in our dear country, Nigeria.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no headway in the negotiations to
resolve the crisis, going by the rhetoric of the zonal coordinator,
Benin zone of ASUU, Dr. Ighalo Sunny. While noting that the union
appreciates the interest shown by various stakeholders in the crisis, he
said, rather ominously:
“But that will not stop us from finding lasting solution to the decay in
our education sector. So, even if it takes us another 10 years, we will
remain at home until the right thing is done.”
Instructively, the Federal Government believes it has already done
enough to make ASUU call off its strike. In the course of his media chat
on the eve of the country’s 53rd Independence anniversary two weeks
ago, President Goodluck Jonathan indeed alleged that politics had crept
into ASUU’s industrial action.
The President noted that he does not control the resources of the states
and wondered why lecturers in state universities are also on strike
over a matter that had to do with demands on the federal government.
While there may be no statistical measure of the cumulative damage done
to the system in the course of the current ASUU strike that is now in
its fourth month,
it is evident that education, the bedrock of any society, has become a huge joke in our country.
Incessant industrial actions have combined with inadequate attention to
damage, almost beyond repairs, our institutions of higher learning.
