JGN Onyekpe
The Federal Government of Nigeria, FGN, has clearly decided to continue to take the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, for a ride. Academics and varsity teachers are clearly not important in the reckoning of the Federal Government. That we are not important in the reckoning of the government is clear from the little or no value the wielders of political power place on higher education.
Why would the wielders of political power place any significant value on higher education when they and their children and hangers-on do not need it for any positions or appointments they desire? Why would they when they have diverted so much from the commonwealth that any of them can buy or forge academic certificates with impunity? More critically, why would they when, in their intellectually wretched and bankrupt concept and understanding of leadership and governance, they are abysmally ignorant of the core role the varsities play or ought to play in the development process? For example, how many of them know what R&D stands for? How many of them, I ask again?
ASUU has decided to embark on a warning strike after the expiration of its two-week ultimatum to the government. The reported constitution of the so-called Mahmood Yayale Ahmed Expanded Committee to continue to meet with ASUU and other varsity staff unions is, to say the least, an affront to ASUU. Several committees have negotiated and renegotiated and renegotiated and renegotiated! Mahmood Yayale Ahmed was the head of the last committee that completed its assignment nine months ago in February 2025.
The news today is that a new committee has been constituted with a new nomenclature, Mahmood Yayale Ahmed Expanded Committee. This smacks of a lack of seriousness on the part of the government. All that ASUU is asking the government to do is sign and implement the draft agreement by the committee headed by the same Mahmood Yayale Ahmed. It is unfortunate indeed that, although the issues ASUU has raised in its constructive engagements with the federal government have been in the public domain for years, enlightened members of the public and opinion leaders are saying nothing. Since the government thinks it can do without varsity teachers, ASUU cannot afford not to prosecute the warning strike as already resolved.
The union has given the government more than enough time to resolve the fundamental issues that ought to be resolved for the public universities to keep afloat, and especially for the universities to be globally competitive. A draft agreement has long been concluded. All ASUU is saying is, sign and implement it. Any new committee constituted is meaningless if its only meeting is not for the purpose of signing the draft agreement; if it is for the continuation of negotiation and renegotiation.
*Prof. Nkem Onyekpe, FHSN.
Department of History and Strategic Studies,
University of Lagos, Akoka
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