Students encourage ASUU to soldier on

University students have sided with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) over its uncompromising stand in the current face-off between the union and the federal government that has left state universities shut for four months.

ASUU President, Nasir Fagge.

On Monday, the National President of ASUU, Nasir Fagge, reiterated the union’s stand on the nationwide strike action, saying concerned parents and other stakeholders should direct their pleas to the federal government.

Parents, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), clerics, the National Assembly, well-meaning Nigerians, as well as President Goodluck Jonathan, have appealed to the lecturers to sheath their daggers and return to the classroom to no avail.
Mr Fagge said that rather than prevailing on ASUU to call off the strike, Nigerians should look at its demands and see their relevance to national development.


“Why is it that when issues like this come up, Nigerians will start begging ASUU to call off strike in the interest of the children and the country in general, rather than prevailing on government?” he said. “I want to state here that we have a lot of respect and appreciate the concern of all Nigerians who have prevailed on ASUU to reconsider its stand and call off the strike.

Empty lecture hall.

But sincerely, I think if people really care about this country and want to move it forward, they should refocus their thinking to government and prevail on them to implement the agreement and then we can start from there. The National Assembly had in the time past appealed to us to bend overand we did in the interest of the country– while negotiations lasted– but look at what is happening now.”
He said that because of the need to respect the views of these Nigerians and to keep the system going, the union called off the strike and that, unfortunately, nothing was done about it.
“We shall no longer be coerced into calling off the strike and returning to classes because the last time we had such a strike was in 2011-when I was the vice president-and two years after, we have embarked on another strike over the same issue,” he said. “I think as a nation, there is need for us to try and do the right thing by way of extracting commitment from our leaders because we cannot continue this way.
Our system is getting bad every day to the extent that when we go out with our certificates, it no longer commands the respect it ought to, and that is why we must do all we could to re-engineer the system. You know that if products from our universities continue to study with little or non-existent infrastructure in place, as it is obtained today, they will fail to deliver and the entire responsibility falls back on our shoulders.”
Reacting to the development, Simeon Nwakaudu, Special Adviser on Media to Nyesom Wike, the Minister of State for Education, said: “The government has made everything they have done clear to the public and the public has seen what Goodluck Jonathan’s administration has done, that is why they are focusing their plea to ASUU. The government does not need to respond to everything ASUU says, since it is clear for everyone to see.”

Students have pledged their full support to ASUU.

Mayowa Aboah, a student of Lagos State University, said he thinks ASUU is right in saying stakeholders should directly their pleas to the federal government.
“I think ASUU is right to a very large extent, they are acting due to the FG’s agreement in 2009,” he said. “It’s not their fault, at some point they are also losing, so I think the FG is the one to beg to please come up with reasonable agreement with the union so students can go back to classes.”
Oloye Tola, an Educational Management student of Ekiti State University, said: “I will appeal to both of them (ASUU and federal government) because if you can see what’s happening right now, I don’t think any of their kids are in Nigeria, I don’t think any of their kids are schooling in Nigeria, so it is very terrible, this is bad, we have some final year students who is supposed to be writing their final year exams, and all these things are happening. A course of four years, you will be spending five, six years, which is not supposed to be, this is bad.”
Mrs Fada Usin, a business woman said: “I think ASUU is over doing it, because in the first instance, this present regime wasn’t the one that promised them the amount and is willing to pay
N100 billion, I think that one should start from somewhere, take that one and definitely there would be a negotiation to say when are you paying the rest of it because the money is out of whatever they are asking for.”
Mrs Usin, however, questioned why ASUU said the federal government should not probe or ask them how the money will be spent. “I mean what are they trying to say? What will they teach the students? Students should not support them, and appeal to ASUU to call of the strike.”

Author(s): Eki Toju (Telegraph Nigeria)