ASUU’s litany of strikes and the aftermath

IT would look like the only thing the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) exists for in Nigeria is to be able to organise strikes and ensure disruption of the university calendar and system at every point. Since its replacing the Nigerian Association of University Teachers (NAUT) in 1978 as the union of Nigerian University teachers, ASUU has been in the consciousness of Nigerians more in relation to industrial and strike actions which invariably paralyze university activities and always leave Nigerians wondering about the game that ASUU and government play. For the tendency is to see the reality of ASUU’s existence and close relationship with strikes even while government encourages it with its own failure as perhaps a game that the two sides are playing for an end that Nigerians are not privy to. Or how else to perceive or view a process that has been continuing for so long without any end in sight even as the public is left with no clue as to the true purpose of the engagement!

As a labour union, ASUU must have been set up for the protection of the interests of its members as workers. Which would and should not be an issue as workers normally come together for the protection of collective interests. Nigerian university teachers would, therefore, be in order to want to have a collective union to protect their interests as workers, such that going on strike as part of the pressure to push for the acceptance of their demands in that regard would also be understandable. In any case, ASUU has never shied from telling Nigerians about its desire to fight for the welfare of its members as it has often called attention to the meagre salaries of Nigerian university teachers vis-à-vis their counterparts in other lands, such that it could then be assumed that ASUU strike actions could and must be for the welfare and salaries of its members. Only that ASUU, sometimes, insists that the strikes are not for the members interests, but to save the Nigerian university system and ensure that it is not allowed to go down to such an extent as to lose the appellation of university. Here ASUU becomes more than a labour union, and strives to approximate a social agitational group for the promotion and protection of general Nigerian interests in having a functional and worthwhile university system.

The logic of all this is to see the litany of strikes by ASUU as directed at saving the Nigerian university system from collapse, even if it does look like the solution proffered could even be adding to the problems to be solved. Take a cursory peep into the history of ASUU strikes: Because of strike actions, the union attracted proscription in 1988 and 1992, with the lifting of the proscription in 1992 and the signing of agreement with the government to accept the issue of collective bargaining making Nigerians to hope for less strike going forward at that point. Nigerians were, however, soon to be disappointed in their expectations as new ASUU strikes were conducted in 1994 and 1996 to show that the strikes by university teachers in Nigeria would be unending. By the time of ASUU strikes in 2007 and 2008, it had become clear that there was no alternative to strikes in the Nigerian university system. Except that with the 2013 ASUU strike lasting more than five months, the nature of the strike and its import had changed with questions as to what could ever be achieved with such long-lasting strikes. And then came the strike of 2020 lasting nine months to be followed by the current strike action already more than six months old, and still counting. The truth is nobody is sure again when a new ASUU strike would begin even if any particular one is called off – or suspended, in the language of the union leadership – or how long any strike could last. Nigerians are now at the mercy of ASUU and the government as far as university education is concerned in Nigeria.

Incidentally, while ASUU continues to insist that it is fighting for the survival of the Nigerian university system through its strikes, it does not look like it understands the fact that those in government could care less about any such system given that their wards do not patronise the system again and they could get election votes from Nigerians regardless of what happens to the university system. None of President Muhammadu Buhari’s children, for instance, has ever attended university in Nigeria. And the same holds for the Governors and other high officials of government with all their children and wards effectively ensconced away in functioning quality universities outside of Nigeria. While Nigerian universities are shut down because of ASUU strike since February, the son of Nyesom Wike, the Governor of Rivers State, Jordan, coolly collected his certificate after graduating from the University of Exeter in Britain on July 11, 2022; to be followed on July 14, 2022 by the son of Badaru Abubakar, the governor of Jigawa State who graduated from Brunel University, London on that day. This is the new trend in Nigeria that should leave us wondering those that ASUU think would be bothered by and with its strike actions when all politicians and government officials have their children and wards in universities outside of Nigeria! In any case, what would be left of the system after ASUU strike of so many months that students would not likely remember anything again about their schools and whatever they must be studying.

If according to Shakuntala Devi, ‘education is not just about going to school and getting a degree. It’s about widening your knowledge and absorbing the truth about life,’ which real knowledge would students expect to get out of the universities after being at home for months on end because of strikes? And who would blame ASUU when government officials carry on with profligate spending everywhere while complaining about lack of funds for the university system? We are presented always with the complexity of the situation as the reason why the strikes have been unending and have been difficult to often resolve quickly. But we know that one thing is quite not complex in all of this: poor Nigerians – as university students and their parents – are the ones bearing the brunt of these unending ASUU strikes!

• Omale writes in from Kano, Nigeria.