The Education Writers’ Association of Nigeria (EWAN) recently mobilised other stakeholders in the country’s education sector to demand the immediate reopening of Nigerian universities that have been under lock and key for nearly three months.
Personnel and groups that participated in the protest include Jiti Ogunye, a rights activist and the former national secretary of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR); Yinka Ogunde, the convener of Concerned Parents and Educators (CPE) Network, and representatives of the National Parents-Teachers’ Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN), among others.
EWAN, which is made up of a body of journalists across print, broadcast and online media organisations who report on the issue of education in the country, says the intervention became necessary following the nonchalant attitude of President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to the continued shut down of public universities for almost three months.
At the same time, we are not exonerating ASUU of no wrong doing, rather we are saying that a responsible government should find a way around the impasse at least for the sake of the poor youths whose future are being mortgaged
After its peaceful walk to the office of Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, EWAN presented a list of demands contained in a letter addressed to President Buhari through the governor.
The letter was received on behalf of the governor by the special adviser on education, Tokunbo Wahab, while a lawmaker representing Ikeja 2 Constituency, Ademola Kasumu, received another copy on behalf of the speaker of the state’s House of Assembly, Mudasiru Obasa.
Wahab, on behalf of Sanwo-Olu, said the present administration feels the concern of EWAN and parents whose wards have been at home for months due to the ongoing industrial action.
He promised to deliver the letter and ensure that it got to the right authorities. This is because and according to this state functionary, no country can progress meaningfully without provision of quality education for its citizens.
The protesters were seen carrying banners and placards with inscriptions like: ‘fund education,’ ‘end moral and academic corruption on campuses,’ ‘We say NO to incessant strikes,’ ‘Yes to responsible unionism,’ and ‘Nigerian students are tired of idleness,’ among others.
Mojeed Alabi, the chairman of EWAN, explained that EWAN’s protest for ASUUr, and reiterated that both the government and even the striking universities’ workers had contributed significantly to the rot.
The entire situation has been worsened by the fact that the workers’ unions including the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Allied and Educational Institutions (NASU) and National Association of Academic Technologists (NAAT) have all declared nationwide strikes, thus, paralysing completely both academic and non-academic activities in the nation’s public universities.
He reiterated that the group was concerned about the prolonged closure of public universities resulting in the students staying idle at home for months. We are also worried over the silence of the government on the issue, he said.
The journalists decried poor allocation to the education sector as well as the appointee to man the sector.
On this note, we strongly believe that the Federal Government should listen to the voice of the people. No matter how right the powers that be in government may tend to claim, there must be human angle to governance.
At the same time, we are not exonerating ASUU of no wrong doing, rather we are saying that a responsible government should find a way around the impasse at least for the sake of the poor youths whose future are being mortgaged.
Considering the poor masses who voted the government into power, there is a great need for the Federal Government to reconsider its position in this issue and get the lecturers and other groups who have joined the strike to return to duty.
It is ordinarily not advisable for government to have allowed ASUU to go on strike in the first place, knowing that the union is the bellwether of the system. This is because, once ASUU decides to go on strike, many other groups both within the university communities and outside the university communities would join in a space of time.
Against this background, it is not surprising that at the moment, NAAT, SSANU, NANS, and many others have toed the path of ASUU, then bringing the ivory tower community to a disrupted and deserted place with little or no socio-economic activities going on.
Many businesses on campus and its environs have packed up, exposing the entrepreneurs and their families to untold hardships. There is doubt that many who depend on the socio-economic life on the campus to survive might have incurred untold debts or may even be bedridden to the inability to cope with the prevailing situation.
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If the government is truly by the people and for the people, then the Federal Government need to urgently prove that it is there for all.
Besides, looking at the intellectual waste associated with these incessant strikes, the Federal Government ought to come to terms on how to manage the precarious situation now and in future.
Due to the prevailing strike, many Nigerians who could afford the money are now relocating to foreign countries to continue their studies, thereby swelling the treasury of those countries through foreign exchange.
The Federal Government could save millions of naira that would have gone through these Nigerian students seeking education abroad.
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the former Emir of Kano, in 2019 at a public lecture stated that although there were no comprehensive data on the number of Nigerian students abroad, recent data had shown that there were about 71,000 Nigerian students in Ghana alone, paying about $1 billion annually as tuition and for their upkeep, as against the annual budget of $751 million for all Nigerian federal universities.
Before the Russia-Ukraine war, there were records to the effect that more than 3,300 Nigerian students were studying in Ukraine. UNESCO placed the figure at 777 Nigerian students studying in Russia as at 2016, obviously the numbers must have increased before now.
It is high time the Federal Government arose to address this abnormalities going on in our tertiary institutions. Posterity will never forgive the leaders should they fail to call to order and/or put to an end the impasse between ASUU and the Federal Government.
This is quite possible and we are of the conviction that the government should as soon as possible, address this seemingly endless strikes by ASUU. This is with a view to ensuring that Nigeria comes into her own in this critical area of national life.
