JGN Onyekpe
It is clear that the federal government does not want to address the fundamental problems of the Nigerian public university system. The only approach of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, that elicits any response from the government is a strike. This is very unfortunate indeed. Members of the union have consequently voted for the resumption of the strike action suspended three years ago in 2022. The suspension was in the hope that the government would be reasonable and responsible enough to seize the opportunity (of the suspension) to address the problems of the public universities. It has turned out that the union’s hope was all in vain. The government squandered the opportunity it was provided to address the problems, while members of the patriotic union witnessed and continue to watch the gangsterly and thieving political elite squander the resources of the nation with riotous abandon and without any plan for the country and its people.
As a union, we have long been pushed to the wall.
The federal government is less than responsible and, hence, it has been escapistic on the critical issues in the Union’s engagements with it.
The time to declare a strike action is now!
Therefore, declare it now, for two reasons. First, it is the only approach that means anything to any government, anywhere, constituted by an intellectually lazy, ideologically bankrupt, and nonpublic-spirited lot, more properly, bunch. Second, if the universal agitation of union members and their popular democratic vote for a strike action continue to be pooh-poohed by the union leadership, as some members have begun to perceive, their hitherto unflinching loyalty would decidedly be adversely affected. To be sure, this cannot be good for the integrity and unity of the great union.
And so, ASUU-NEC, choose between Unity in Action and Division in Inaction.
Fraternal Greetings!
Prof. JGN Onyekpe.
University of Lagos, Akoka.
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