ASUU strike: Commuters groan as protesting students block Lagos-Ibadan Expressway

Protesting Nigerian students on Tuesday March 8 blocked the ever busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway saying they are protesting the ongoing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

“We are on our way to see a client for a very crucial meeting but have been trapped in this gridlock for hours just because students blocked the road in protest. They said they are tired of staying at home because of ASUU strike. Imagine how they have disrupted movement on this axis,” one of the trapped commuters told BusinessDay.

Lagos-Ibadan expressway is the most viable economically, being the busiest, the major gateway to other parts of the country, particularly the East and North, and the main facilitator of East-West trade and commerce.

The 127.6-kilometre-long (79.3 mi) Lagos–Ibadan Expressway connects Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State and Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. It is also the major route to the northern, southern and eastern parts of Nigeria.

Nigeria’s minister of education, Adamu Adamu, on Monday, gave a three-month deadline to the newly inaugurated committee saddled with the responsibility of renegotiating the 2009 agreement between the government and the university workers’ unions including the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), Non-Academic Staff Union of Education and Associated Institutions (NASU) and the National Association of Academic Technologists.

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Adamu said during the inauguration of the renegotiation committee in Abuja that he expects the exercise to be concluded within three months and produce a draft document.

The seven-man committee will be chaired by an emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, and pro-chancellor of Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu Alike Ikwo, Ebonyi State, Nimi Briggs.

The minister said the committee is expected to review the draft 2009 agreements and negotiate with the university-based unions including SSANU, NAAT and NASU.

But the leadership of ASUU said the ongoing three-week-old nationwide strike will continue until “whatever the government wants to do with the agreement is completed and an acceptable implementation commences.”