The ambiguity of ASUU’s conditional suspended strike

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) on Friday, October 14, announced the conditional suspension of its eight-month-old strike after the union’s national executive council (NEC) meeting in Abuja. To some, the news was a good music to the ears, while to others it triggered anxiety on how to manage the concomitant effects of the strike.

When ASUU on Monday, February 14, 2022, went on strike in protest over the Federal Government of Nigeria’s failure to release the promised balance of one tranche of revitalisation funds for universities after over one year, failure to release the white paper report of the visitation panel to universities and the failure to deploy the University Transparency Accountability System (UTAS) for the payment of salaries and allowances of lecturers, many expected that within few days it would be resolved.

But that was not be as ASUU after its NEC meeting in August informed all and sundry that the union had experienced a lot of deceit of the highest level in the last five and half years, as the Federal Government engaged them in fruitless and unending negotiation without a display of utmost fidelity.

…for ASUU leadership to suddenly come out, claiming that the union for the first time, has seen light at the end of the tunnel, is causing some ripples, as some Nigerians are at loss on what the lecturers meant

Part of the deceit from the Federal Government, according to ASUU, was the government’s inability to deliver on the promised balance of one tranche of the revitalisation fund more than one year after, the outstanding two tranches of the Earned Academic Allowances (EAA) have not been released. Above all, nothing has since happened on the promised support for amendment to the Law of the National Universities Commission (NUC) to stem the tide of proliferation of universities, especially by the state governments, among others.

We duly affirm that the suspension was long overdue. While the reasons for the strike action were legitimate, the strike did more harm than the grievances they intended to cure.

With a whole session lost and the future of hundreds of thousands of youth potentially imperilled, there must be alternatives to the strike, for conflict resolution. Labour issues at this age and time cannot be allowed to escalate to the point of further exacerbating the fragile conditions of the educational sector.

However, for ASUU leadership to suddenly come out, claiming that the union for the first time, has seen light at the end of the tunnel is causing some ripples, as some Nigerians are at loss on what the lecturers meant.

We want to ask: What exactly is that light ASUU saw; is it that the government has promised to fund university education, or revitalise infrastructures? Recently, the Times Higher Education World University Ranking was released, and none of the country’s universities could rank in the first 300 universities in the world.

We want to know, if ASUU claims to have seen the light at the end of the tunnel, why give conditional suspension? ASUU should be more convincing in this matter.

How ASUU could have taken such a bold step to waste eight months of the students’ academic journey and life just because of its courses is what some do not understand. No doubt the lecturers deserve their pay, but should it be at the detriment of the students.

The union’s leadership on Sunday, October 16, said ASUU decided to call off the strike because, “it is law-abiding and does not want to flout the National Industrial Court and the Court of Appeal orders on resumption.”

How could a union that claimed to have seen the light at the of the tunnel come out again to say, it suspended the strike to honour the order of the industrial court.

It is obvious that both ASUU and the Federal Government are toying with the future of Nigerian students because it is commonly said that most of them do not have their children in the country’s public universities. Both ASUU and the government do not have the moral right to defend the interest of the public universities, and this was clearly manifested by the way the strike was handled.

A government that could not keep to its promises, a government that set up a committee, yet could not adhere to the recommendations from the committee. A government that asks a minister to hands off and another minister to take over deliberations, yet the opposite was the case. Is that the government ASUU said showed them the light?

This decision to temporarily call the students back to school when issues are not really sorted out comes with many bush-fire effects.

Many of the students were not prepared for this sudden recall, and after waiting for months, some of them had started some ventures to navigate the murky economic environment they found themselves in.

Some have even lost count of their course outlines and where they were before the strike. Many are faced with financial crunch resulting from the prolonged strike; some who live off campus are faced with outstanding rents, having stayed away for more than six months, etc.

We want to ask ASUU and the government again; what happens to the students you kept at home for eight months? What are the provisions made both from the Federal Government and ASUU to cushion the negative effects of the strike on these students? We are yet to get the picture ASUU and the Federal Government are painting here. Who is fooling who?

We hope ASUU will not wake up tomorrow to tell us that the Federal Government has not met its agreement, when we do not even know what the agreement was?

We choose not to celebrate yet!