FG’s broken promises and ASUU strike

In the past decade, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has embarked on several strikes that have shut down public universities for hundreds of days — at enormous cost to students, families, and the nation’s development. The latest two-week warning strike is yet another chapter in the long, tragic story of promises broken and […]

In the past decade, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has embarked on several strikes that have shut down public universities for hundreds of days — at enormous cost to students, families, and the nation’s development. The latest two-week warning strike is yet another chapter in the long, tragic story of promises broken and education betrayed.

Once again, the gates of Nigeria’s public universities are closed — not by lecturers who dislike teaching, nor by students who detest learning, but by a government that has turned deceit into policy.

The action declared by ASUU on October 13, 2025, is not an act of rebellion but a cry for justice which is an expression of frustration against a system built on betrayal, arrogance, and calculated indifference.

For the umpteenth time, the federal government has toyed with the education sector by signing agreements it never intends to honour, masking its failures with propaganda, and treating dialogue as an inconvenience rather than a duty.

This strike, as always, is not born of greed but of grief. ASUU’s demands remain simple, patriotic, and long overdue: revitalization funds for collapsing universities, earned allowances for overworked lecturers, and the genuine implementation of agreements freely entered into years ago.

Regrettably, instead of keeping its word, the government prefers to recycle deceit — setting up committees that do nothing and issuing memos that mean even less.

In the past 10 years alone, public universities have lost more than 700 academic days to strikes. The 2020 industrial action alone lasted for about nine months, with devastating consequences for students whose academic journeys were disrupted and dreams deferred.

At a press conference on October 12, 2025, ASUU President, Professor Chris Piwuna, declared that the union had reached its limit. “There has been no meaningful progress to prevent the union from moving forward with its planned industrial action,” he said, describing the government’s response as “a paper without substance, a promise without soul.” It was, he added, further proof that the government neither listens nor learns.

Rather than engage with sincerity, the government resorted to its habitual threat — the “No Work, No Pay” policy. Vice-Chancellors were directed to take roll calls and withhold the salaries of striking lecturers. Such a response exposes not only the government’s insensitivity but also its misunderstanding of the issue. The “No Work, No Pay” policy assumes ASUU’s struggle is about money. It is not. It is about integrity, national survival, and the restoration of a decaying university system.

Professor Piwuna’s response was firm and dignified: “We don’t respond to threats. Nobody can threaten us.” His words echo the frustrations of thousands of lecturers who continue to teach in overcrowded classrooms, with obsolete equipment, unpaid salaries, and crumbling facilities. How do you threaten those who already endure deprivation in defence of knowledge? How do you intimidate people whose only demand is that government should honour its word?

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), in a strong show of solidarity, has thrown its weight behind ASUU. NLC President, Joe Ajaero, condemned the government’s position and described the “No Work, No Pay” order as a distortion of justice. “The breach of contract lies with the state, not the scholars,” he said. “The lecturers are willing to work, but the government, by reneging on its commitments, has made it impossible for them to do so with dignity.” The NLC has warned that if the crisis is not resolved after the two-week warning strike, the entire labour movement will join the struggle. Its message is clear: an injury to one is an injury to all.

Every ASUU strike is born out of broken promises. Each dishonoured agreement becomes the seed of another shutdown. When classrooms fall silent, it is not a victory for the union but a failure of leadership. For a government that claims to champion reform, it is shameful that it cannot reform itself into honesty.

How can a nation progress when its leaders prefer propaganda to dialogue and intimidation to sincerity? How can a country build a future when those who build minds are treated as adversaries?

ASUU’s struggle is not a fight for privilege but for the soul of education. It is a confrontation with the moral decay that defines governance in Nigeria — a protest against a system that rewards mediocrity and punishes excellence; that starves its teachers while feeding corruption; that sends its leaders’ children abroad to study while neglecting the universities that once shaped them. This is not just hypocrisy; it is moral bankruptcy.

The strike is therefore not an act of defiance but of deliverance — a reminder that education is not an expense but an investment in national survival. When government mocks ASUU’s persistence, it mocks the idea of a thinking nation. When it ignores their demands, it declares war on knowledge. And when it threatens “No Work, No Pay,” it reveals its poverty of morality.

Nigeria’s government has lost credibility. It preaches patriotism yet destroys public institutions. It talks of progress but fears enlightenment. It calls for calm but provokes anger through deceit. There is no honour in governance that cannot keep its word, no progress in policies founded on lies. What ASUU demands is what any responsible government should willingly provide — a functional university system, fair remuneration, and a future that does not drive the youth to flee the country.

It is disheartening that no Nigerian professor earns up to $600 a month, while colleagues in smaller African nations — Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, even Niger Republic — receive between $2,000 and $3,000. Since 1999, the economic cost of ASUU strikes, including lost productivity and damage to infrastructure, is estimated at over ₦1.2 trillion. But the greater cost is moral — the erosion of faith in governance and the normalization of deceit.

The current ASUU strike should be seen not as a disruption but as a call to conscience — a desperate reminder that silence in the face of injustice is complicity. ASUU’s action is driven not by hatred but by hope: hope that one day Nigeria will be led by men and women who understand that a nation that starves its universities feeds its own destruction.

When teachers strike, it is not because they hate to teach but because they can no longer endure the insult of a government that refuses to learn. The chalk is crying, classrooms are empty, and the future trembles — waiting for a government that still does not listen. If the Tinubu administration continues to trade sincerity for propaganda, history will remember that ASUU stood firm when truth became unfashionable.

For when a government breaks its promise to its teachers, it breaks its promise to its people. And a nation that betrays its educators has already begun to fail its children.

 

Lamara Garba Azare, a journalist from Kano.