Be strong, ASUU; call off the strike

If this breakaway group wants out, there are other registered political parties waiting to embrace them. The main crisis before us as a nation now is the continued closure of our universities as a result of the strike action embarked by lecturers. Since the beginning of July, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) embarked […]

If this breakaway group wants out, there are other registered political parties waiting to embrace them. The main crisis before us as a nation now is the continued closure of our universities as a result of the strike action embarked by lecturers. Since the beginning of July, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) embarked on yet another strike. What was initially thought to be a little break in the academic calendar has left students, parents and all who love our country very bewildered and even agitated.
And why not? From days to weeks, the current strike is now in its third month with all its implications on learning and the future of our children. What is even more worrying is the suspicion that the leadership of ASUU appears locked on a game of chicken with the government without any hint of shifting any ground in the negotiation with the government to end the strike. Listening to both parties in this unnecessary conflict, it is easy to come to the conclusion that the conundrum preventing early resolution of the disagreement between university teachers and Government is turning into an ego thing. Yet it is very unfair and unforgiving to sacrifice the future of tomorrow’s leaders on the altar of big egos.
ASUU has continued to insist that the strike is not about only their welfare but more about the adequate funding of the universities to make them really centres of excellence in research and learning. And who would quarrel with that? University teachers have accused the government of breaching earlier agreement with them in 2009, which required Government to inject annually N400 billion for three years into the universities, for the upgrading of facilities and infrastructure in our various campuses. If this idea is indeed feasible, it would be the ideal for the universities to be more than adequately funded because the future of every society can be read from the quality of its university system. The era in which the wealth of nations is measured by how much of natural resources like crude oil they can deliver is gone. The rich and progressive world systems are those who have developed their technology and honed the talents of their citizens and there is no surer path to this transformation than education. In simple language, there is a direct relationship between quality education and economic growth. The import of this point is not lost on the government, which has provided N100 billion for the universities with the promise of doing same for the next three years. Lecturers unfortunately are unimpressed, however.
Calling off this strike and returning to the classroom while the negotiations continue with the government is one way of acknowledging the public support they have enjoyed over the years. That in anyway cannot be a sign of weakness!

Medinat Umar, Abuja