Still On Government, Lecturers’ Standoffs

One happening that is gradually becoming the defining diagnostic of the nationalist assemblage strategy successful Nigeria is the edifice to strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) arsenic a mode of making its grievances known to the authorities. From 1999 to the present, the national has embarked connected strikes astir 20 times, lasting cumulatively for up to 53 months.

Some of the strikes by the lecturers included 5 months successful 1999, 2001 (three months), 2002 (two weeks),2003 (six months), 2005 (two weeks), 2006 (three days), 2007 (three months), 2008 (one week), 2009 (four months), 2010 (five months). Others are 2011 (59 days), 2013 (five months), 2016 (one week), 2017 (one month), 2018 (three months), 2020 (nine months), 2022 (eight months)

The crushed for these strikes is fundamentally the same: ASUU’s presumption is that the authorities neglects the nation’s nationalist assemblage system, forcing the lecturers to enactment nether a deplorable environment.
The world calendars of Nigerian nationalist universities are often disrupted by recurring strikes, which person negatively impacted teaching and research, contributing to the universities’ abysmally debased ranking. For instance, successful the caller planetary universities’ ranking by Times Higher Education (THE), nary of the implicit 100 universities successful the state made it to the apical 500 list.

Prominent universities successful the country, specified arsenic Ahmadu Bello University, the University of Lagos, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and the University of Ibadan, for instance, were ranked extracurricular the 1-1000 category.

To expect immoderate Nigerian university, particularly nationalist ones, which consistently person had to contend with prolonged ASUU strikes, to look successful the apical database of the THE ranking is to unrecorded successful self-denial. ASUU, much than anyone, knows this excessively well.

The predominant strikes by assemblage lecturers, which proceed to person a important interaction connected not lone the strategy but besides the students, person continued to contiguous ASUU successful a antagonistic light.

It is existent that successful 2009, ASUU and the Nigerian authorities signed an statement covering conditions of service, funding, assemblage autonomy, and world freedom. Specifically, the statement was to reverse the decay successful the assemblage strategy and reposition it for greater work successful nationalist development. It besides seeks to reverse the encephalon drain by enhancing the remuneration of world unit and disengaging them from the encumbrances of a unified civilian work wage structure.

Another volition of the statement was to reconstruct Nigerian universities done immediate, massive, and sustained fiscal intervention, and to guarantee genuine autonomy and world freedom.
While we judge that efforts indispensable beryllium made to guarantee the dutiful implementation of the statement wrong the limits of the nation’s disposable resources, successful presumption of the competing nationalist demands, recurring strikes by ASUU are surely not the solution.

Under the contiguous past medication of Muhammadu Buhari, undergraduates successful universities crossed the state mislaid not little than 13 months from their acquisition calendar, owing to the recurring strikes by ASUU.

These strikes person negatively impacted teaching and probe successful the nation’s ivory towers, further eroding the assurance parents and students person successful the nation’s universities and the certificates they issue.
Alarmingly, the recurring strikes person engendered a huffy unreserved for overseas universities, with immoderate Nigerians settling for precise low-quality universities successful neighbouring countries simply due to the fact that of the warrant of an uninterrupted world session.

Suppose each the strikes by ASUU, particularly from 1999 to 2022, are worrisome. In that case, the latest informing onslaught by the lecturers is much truthful due to the fact that it came hardly hours aft the Federal Government renewed its committedness to resolving each pending issues with the Union.

More than anything, the information that determination has been nary onslaught successful the past 2 years of the contiguous medication demonstrates the government’s committedness to addressing the nagging issues that person been astatine the bosom of the recurring strikes.

We are, therefore, alarmed that ASUU is insisting connected a onslaught erstwhile the contiguous medication has consistently engaged the Union and conceded to immoderate of its demands. This insistence portrays ASUU arsenic being fascinated with strikes, oregon other it would person followed done with the existent dialog process alternatively of being confrontational.

Fundamentally, the recurring strikes by ASUU are an sick upwind that does nary bully to anyone, due to the fact that they wounded students, parents, and the nation’s already strained acquisition system.

Therefore, we impulse ASUU to clasp the connection for engagement made by the national government, which is geared towards addressing its cardinal demands, including wage adjustments, assemblage funding, and pending allowances...