Hurrah! The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), has called off its strike, exactly eight months after! ASUU president, Professor Emmanuel Victor Osodeke, had given hope that the eight-month-old strike action by his members might soon come to an end – whether gloriously or ingloriously, I must add! The intervention of the House of Representatives, led by its speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, must have broken the ice so much so that Osodeke could confidently announce that he (interpreted ASUU?) had sighted light at the end of the tunnel: After eight wasted months, which is like three academic semesters! My son, who is in the first semester of Part Three at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, told me his friends and classmates in strike-free universities will be graduating in two months’ time!
Who are the losers and who are the gainers? Eight months of a stupid abdication of duty by an irresponsible Federal Government and bragging rights by a bunch of so-called academics bereft of new and radical ideas have spun losers all over the place. The students have lost three semesters which can never be regained. Whatever the lecturers think, say or do, there is no way they will teach rush-rush what they would have done in a normal academic calendar. Their products will be more half-baked than the desired quality meeting international standards. The saving grace, especially for studious students, is that they have leveraged on the internet to learn new things and improve themselves during the lockdown, far better than their lecturers could even have helped them was school to be in session.
Parents and guardians are another set of losers, having wasted resources as, for example, a four-year course dragged on to six or more years for no fault of theirs – and for no fault of their wards. Employers of labour are also losers. Many good hands that would have since joined the labour market are still pining away in the universities and by the time they are released, the age limit that many employers of labour have inexplicably erected would have caught up with them. The host communities of the universities have had their economy take a beating that many may not recover from for a long time to come.
Perhaps the greatest losers, even more than the students and their parents, are the universities and lecturers themselves. They have de-marketed themselves and called to question the quality of the services they offer. Except those who have no choice – and those who believe in the ability of their wards to self-educate and rise above the shenanigans of our university system, who will suffer his or her children to suffer the mindless wastage of time and resources that have become endemic in our universities? After this strike, ASUU will never be the same again – at least for a very long time to come! In an effort to break the ranks and spirit of ASUU, which is a most condemnable act, the FG applied divide-and rule by registering two other unions to challenge ASUU. It is an act of desperation on the part of the government. On the part of the splinter unions, especially the Congress of University Academics (CONUA), it is cutting the nose to spite the face. But now that CONUA has achieved its aim of recognition and registration by the Federal Government, what next?
Can either of ASUU or CONUA do without the other on our campuses? Should either go on strike; can the other keep the system running? Government will soon realise it has created more problems while trying to run away from one. With the available statistics, none of the two unions can keep the system running. In place of one union destabilising the university system, we now have two. While dealing with one union was Herculean, we now have two to deal with. Shall we call this the Chris Ngige logic or Muhammadu Buhari hypothesis?
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