On Monday February 14, 2022, Nigerian Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) was reported to have resolved to go on yet another strike. This will be a “one-month comprehensive and total strike to compel the Nigerian government to accede to our requests,” several national newspapers and online media reported ASUU to have said.
Nigerians by now know the problems with the public university education and why ASUU has been perennially fighting to solve the problems. I will address these problems in the course of suggesting the solutions shortly. What Nigerians also know is that ASUU has consistently used ONLY ONE weapon to fight these problems. And that weapon is strike! Incessant strikes! For many decades they have fought with strikes, for many decades they have lost woefully and their reputation is now in shambles. Only an insane person uses the same failing method more than thrice! ASUU is now considered by many students and parents as a selfish body of people, who will embark on strike, waste students’ time, and yet will claim salary for work not done. Some parents would say: “Are they the only people not getting the best out of Nigeria?”
Some parents now look for alternatives in private universities that are not better than the public universities. Some parents send their children abroad to study for a Bachelor degree in Ghana, Benin Republic, South Africa, India, Turkey, Malaysia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and other nations based on their level of affordability, either genuinely or by corrupt means, just to avoid ASUU strike, not necessarily to obtain better-quality education. The fate of public primary and secondary education is fast becoming the fate of public universities in Nigeria. Only a few parents with means put their children in public primary and secondary schools. Most students of public foundational schools have no chairs, no desk, some even have no uniform. Yet, the Federal Government claims they are feeding these children!
This writer is deeply concerned that ASUU, a body of intellectuals, has terribly failed to think differently for more than three decades it has been striking without success. There are three motivations for this intervention. This writer was a member of ASUU, briefly at Osun State University, and deems fit to offer unsolicited advice as a former colleague. The writer, as a Bachelor degree student at Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), was a victim of many ASUU strikes. The writer, as a patriotic diaspora-Nigerian, wants an end not only to the public university problems, but to the root problem of the Nigerian society.
The problem of public universities is the same problem with the public primary and secondary schools. It is the same problem with the lack of a functioning refinery to cater for our local needs of petroleum products. It is the same problem with other public infrastructures. All of them are, mostly, problems of inept leadership. Intellect-lacking leadership. Unpatriotic and selfish leadership. Leadership recruited through thuggery, violence and vote-buying. Leadership stolen by gun-carrying soldiers for too long. If these statements, among many others space would not permit to be stated, are fundamentally true; then the solution to problems of Nigerian public universities will not come through incessant strike actions. The solutions will come from addressing the root problems. Fortunately, ASUU is best positioned to offer patriotic solutions through citizenship and community service to the country. After all, the Nigerian Universities’ Vice Chancellors are now ad hoc INEC returning officers in most elections.
My sojourn in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, especially in academia, made me understand that a student is a customer to his or her teacher, whom the teacher must work with, to ensure he or she succeeds. His or her success is the teacher’s success. Sometimes, your student is also your colleague, you learn from him or her too, and at university level you can jointly publish journal articles. A University student can later be employed as a colleague in the department, and possibly becomes a family friend. Perhaps, most importantly, Nigerian university teachers should have the understanding that their students constitute a major bloc of voters who should determine the tenants at Aso Rock, National Assembly, 36 State Government Houses, and Houses of Assembly. Indeed, some of these students would later become politicians who will contribute to the fate of not only education, but other aspects of the Nigerian society.
Again, if the statements above are true; then ASUU members should leverage these truths to their advantage. They should start mentoring the students under them, not only to become professionals in their chosen fields, but also to become problem-solving leaders. ASUU should begin to build competent, intellectually-provoking, and selfless leaders in their students. They should build to become patriotic citizens who will ensure they vote for competent leaders, and that thuggery, violence and vote-buying have no place in our society. The solution to, not only problems of public universities, but also problems of infrastructures, is not incessant strike. The solution is mentorship of students aged 18 and above to become the determinant of competent leaders for Nigeria.
ASUU members should take at least 5 minutes of every lecture to have rapport with their students in an atmosphere of mutual trust. They should improvise in teaching the students, and be ingenious with sharing limited resources among the students. ASUU members should create a culture of sharing among the students as the resources are inadequate to cater for them, partly because political leaders at the states and federal levels do not prioritize education, and partly because resources will always be limited. They should dialogue with their students transparently, and discuss how they can raise funds to get materials for practical classes, field trips, etc. If they need to contribute, let the students determine the cost, the amount to contribute and how to ensure those who truly have no means to pay are catered for. Let one of them be the treasurer, and be accountable. By doing this, they are raising alumni who will give back to the system later. On no account should a lecturer collect money from the students either for handouts or for any practical or field trip or anything that will facilitate teaching and learning. ASUU members should turn things around to make leaders out of their students in the midst of the decaying system and limited resources.
ASUU members should educate their students regularly that the reason they could graduate and not find a befitting job or not able to set up their own business is because of too many incompetent and corrupt leaders occupying Aso Rock, National Assembly, State Houses, State Assemblies, and State and Federal Ministries. They should expose the ineptitudes of politicians to the younger generation in their classes. ASUU should let their students know that a sitting president and his vice president who acquired licenses for themselves to run profit-oriented universities can never be concerned with decaying public universities. ASUU should educate their students that politicians who forged degree certificates can never pay adequate attention to education. ASUU should educate their students that it is easier for two state governors to appoint their political mentor as a university chancellor than to resolve issues of ownership and responsibility about the university. Yet, the same chancellor, who failed to reconcile his mentees to resolve the problem of the university, has shown an interest to run the country!
ASUU members should indoctrinate their students that a politician who relies on thugs and violence to win election would rather prioritize the welfare of those thugs over allocating adequate funds to education. ASUU members should let their students know that there is absolutely no reason any university graduate should need a politician to find a befitting job in a sane society. Therefore, they, the students, almost all of whom, if not all, are of suffrage age should work together with ASUU to fight the system not working for the majority.
Over time, with mutual trusts and common fate and faith, it should be possible for ASUU to have rapport with the student body – the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS). That NANS is mostly a tool in the hands of corrupt politicians is the failing of ASUU as a body. Rather than strike actions, ASUU should be having joint peaceful rallies with NANS on not only issues peculiar to public universities, but also on national issues of importance.
As we move towards the 2023 general election, ASUU and NANS should be issuing joint warnings to the Federal Government, State Governments, INEC and Police to ensure there is no vote buying, no thuggery, and no political violence in the land. ASUU and NANS should be interested in working with media practitioners to organize political debates in the universities, with funfairs, on various political issues such as federalism, restructuring, leadership recruitment, infrastructural upliftment, etc. Indeed, such University debates should start even now, as aspirants are indicating interests.
ASUU and NANS should work together to ensure students are able to vote in their campuses for political contestants of their choices at their primary localities, even when they are away in other states. For instance, a student from Atiba Local Government of Oyo State, studying at FUTA, should be able to vote for the Atiba State Constituency, Oyo Federal Constituency, Oyo Central Senatorial District and Oyo State Governorship candidates of his or her choice, even while in Akure, Ondo State. FUTA should neither be closed nor the student be required to travel needlessly before the student can exercise his or her voting right.
ASUU members have tremendous influence unused, in a civilized setting. They should learn that their Students (NANS) are their customers, with whom they can design solutions to the problems. They should know that their students are their younger colleagues with whom they should fight decaying infrastructures and inept political class. They should know that it is their patriotic and moral duty to carry their students along in making not only the university communities a better place, but Nigerian society a livable place.
The fate of the public primary and secondary education MUST not befall the public university education. Rather, the actions of ASUU and their voting-age students should help ensure a better society in general. ASUU should provide both professional and leadership mentorship for their students. They should learn to improvise with the limited resources and build mutual trust in their students. They should stop having meaningless strikes but work with the student bodies to have peaceful rallies on issues of importance to the public universities and the nation at large. By doing so, their students will be ready to work with them to provide solutions to national problems, especially the foundational problem of leadership in Nigeria.
Concerning their salaries and allowances, they should know that strike actions will not work in their favor, especially when most political elites do not have their children under them. Indeed, ASUU members should be aware that the society now see them as working more jobs at public and private universities, and they should be content, and realize that many people work more than them and earn far less in a largely unfair Nigerian society.
Finally, dear givers of knowledge and wisdom, please stop the incessant strikes. Start mentoring your students, and working with them to stop the decay and begin to build, together, a livable society.
- Olarinre Salako writes from North Dakota in the United States via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
